Madame Bovary at the Movies: Adaptation, Ideology, Context by Mary Donaldson-Evans (review)

episodes that highlight the relationship between the melodrama and the drame romantique. The five essays that make up the third part deal in various ways with the question of popular theater and popular literature in the nineteenth century and point the way toward a conclusion (that Thomasseau labels his ‘Epilogue’) in which he traces the descendants of the melodrama to André Antoine’s art theater movement and beyond. Elegantly and often wittily written, the individual essays would have benefited from some revision, as background details are repeated from one chapter to another and some arguments, due to the constraints of the twenty-minute conference paper, are more provocative than fully convincing. Still, the author’s erudition is obvious; the information he shares is useful, and the depth of understanding and appreciation for this “bastard” genre that he imparts is priceless . Thomasseau certainly makes the case for the importance of the melodrama as cultural phenomenon and aesthetic artifact, and his Mélodramatiques is essential reading for anyone interested in nineteenth-century French culture. University of South Alabama Susan McCready DONALDSON-EVANS, MARY. Madame Bovary at the Movies: Adaptation, Ideology, Context. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. ISBN 978-90-420-2504-2. Pp. 218. $59.00. The sixties and seventies brought us a new genre, the “ciné-roman [scenarionovel ]” designed to be read and seen. Mary Donaldson-Evans considers the far more common but less studied genre, the adaptation of novels to film. With an admirable knowledge of film theory and of Flaubert and Madame Bovary, she offers expert analyses of four film versions that are linked to Flaubert’s prose masterpiece , while remaining nonetheless quite independent. The first chapter offers a very useful summary of the theory that undergirds adaptations. Literary and visual media have many differences, and the conversion of one to the other presents enormous difficulties. The length of fine novels simply cannot be squeezed into visual sequences of two to three hours. After touching on a number of problems like indeterminacy, Donaldson-Evans asks the most embarrassing question (the elephant in the room): “What purpose is served by adapting [Madame Bovary] to the screen?” (37). One would immediately suspect that there is always a market for film versions of well-known novels, and as the author suggests, we professors need to choose wisely as we attempt to supplement our classes with films for visually-oriented students. Otherwise, the answers are many and complex, whether it is the challenge of rivaling a masterpiece or of using a work to heighten a particular theme, however different from the author’s (in this case Flaubert’s) intention. Donaldson-Evans has chosen adaptations, arranged chronologically, that exemplify the freest use of Flaubert’s novel and a faithful attempt to recreate it in another medium. Despite the many problems that Renoir experienced in directing his adaptation and bringing it to completion, Donaldson-Evans’s exquisite textual analysis of the film insists on Renoir’s fidelity to essential elements of the novel, while adding the personal touches of framed portraiture and allusions to paintings for which he is famous. She explains the most important symbols, and shows how Renoir occasionally invented scenes that successfully abbreviate the novel. Likewise Renoir’s populist sympathies open another dimension that does not reflect 388 FRENCH REVIEW 84.2 Flaubert’s novel or attitudes, and he portrays Emma with much more sympathy. Rather than the horrendous death Emma experienced by arsenic, Renoir allows her to attain a certain dignity and peace in her death. Minnelli displays technical advances in 1949 over Renoir’s 1934 film, while Donaldson-Evans’s analysis brings out subtler and indeed more important distinctions . She convincingly argues that oppressive American censors had a marked effect on the final product in order to emphasize the moral of the story of Emma’s destruction. Chabrol’s attempt to reproduce Flaubert’s prose faithfully in 1991 loses much of the marvelous irony of the original novel, and the film’s voiceovers seem all too professorial. Many of the scenic arrangements repeat, yet somehow fail to live up to the novel, despite Chabrol’s guiding principle of fidelity. Furthermore, by deleting all positive references to religion, he “significantly alters the personal...