From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Sat Mar 09 2002 - 02:27:42 MST
First, regarding pi being left out in the movie:
Dickey, Michael F
>As far as the number of things left out, there may have been only a few
>quantitative differences, but qualitatively the differences were vast.
>Having been reading Sagan for years I was disappointed.
>The introduction of the pattern in pie at the end altered the entire
>theme of the book, and Foster's character couldn't argue against
>even the most basic objections to her stance.
Yes, I see your point regarding the pi. I didn't think the movie's
ambiguous ending was necessarily bad, but the pi in the book did
tie the various plot elements together.
I just read, in the Sagan biography I have, that the pi was left out
in the movie due to a decision higher up in the film studio, so then,
a Hollywood decision. The decision makers thought that pi was too
complicated a topic for the public to understand. So here, yes,
a dumbing down of the movie. too bad.
>In the book she was much more outspoken and (I thought) intelligent.
>The movie's Arroway was a dumbed down characterature of an
>intellectual atheist, and stumbled anytime someone disagreed with
>her or pointed out some lame allegedly logical flaw in her stance.
>To me, these things showed the influence that hollywood did have in
>the film.
One thing to remember is that the book was published 12 years before
the movie came out. Sagan was changing, himself, during that time.
Carl Sagan went to extremes, in my opinion, to build that movie
character, so I give him (and the others) a huge amount of credit to
have produced even what he did produce, that is: a smart female
scientist character. I don't know of any other movie to have such
realism for that role. The people involved: he, Ann Druyan (his
wife), Linda Obst (film producer), Lucy Fisher and Courtney Valenti
(executive producers), and of course, Jodie Foster, did it right, in
my opinion. Do you really think that a Dagny Taggart approach would
have worked?
Perhaps the character worked so well because there were mostly women
involved to 'protect' it, and make the role realistic. The research
by Sagan, Druyan, and Obst that went into building that role
involved interviewing women scientists of that generation
(1950s-60s) to learn their childhoods, educational and professional
experiences, and especially the obstacles that those women
encountered. I'm sure that Foster studied this too. If Arroway seemed
'softer' or 'more compromising' than the book character, I suggest
that it was intended, and is, in fact realistic. It's a fact of
life, that women scientists work in male dominated fields, and have
their own approaches, compromises, and solutions to their work
environemnt. Huge decisions and compromises are necessary in order
to balance family life and work life as well. A black-and-white
Dagny Taggert in those situations would probably end up committing
suicide in real life.
Amara
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race." -- H. G. Wells
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