I saw the play today. But I wonder how was the movie different than the play?
shareIf you saw the play, then you know you never actually see the picnic. All the action takes place in the Owens/Potts back yards. The good thing about the movie is that it could be "opened up" and we can see/hear the picnic rather than just being told about it.
"We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did."
Some of the scenes in the film are so stagey, especially the picnic, that I'm suprised to find that it wasn't in the play.
shareLots had to be added to the film to make it less stagey, which is good in a way because it shows off some lovely Kansas landscapes, but the director get a bit caught up in having 2000 extras at his disposal hence the three-legged race, pie-eating contest etc.
shareHuh, I felt the exact opposite about the film. I thought the play was so much better, and largely due to the setting.
Let's be a little reasonable; almost all plays are "stagey" especially if they only have no setting changes. And my favorite kind of plays are those with no setting changes because it's more challenging to unfold a whole story in one spot, and I've always felt setting changes in plays to be a little distracting.
I've always felt that when adapting a play to the screen, a cardinal rule that lots of directors/writers ignore is that just because you can expand the setting doesn't mean you have to.
All the setting changes in the film (Hal calling on Allen, he and Allen visiting his father's factory, that bogus police car chase, the scene in Howard's house, etc.) were the stagey ones because they all felt forced, superfluous, fluffed up.
The whole play unfolded in the Owens' and Ms. Potts' font yards and it might've been more interesting if the film had stayed closer to those confines. Though it was nice to see the picnic (especially since it was called "picnic") the story wasn't about the picnic; it was about the characters' dilemmas.
Ignore the trolls! Any failure to do so will only grant them the satisfaction they seek!
I'd rather see a play opened up too much than one that adheres too much to its stage roots. I couldn't stand Otto Preminger's SAINT JOAN because there aren't any battle scenes, we're just told about them!
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"