The entire life of a character, in both novel and film, is at the mercy of the one who creates them. The job of a film adaptation is to realize and shape the characters of the original work on-screen in a believable, enjoyable, and successful way. In the novels The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, The Big Sleep, and Devil in a Blue Dress, the main female characters, Katharina Blum, Vivian Rutledge, and Daphne Monet, respectively, are each depicted in a specific way by the authors and all are significantly reshaped in their film counterparts. Through each character change in both development and personality of these female characters, the themes from novel to adaptation are diluted.
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum is a novel written by Heinrich Böll and first published in 1974. Through the persecution and humiliation of the character Katharina Blum, the novel’s main themes revolve around the corruption of government and the media and how a person can be driven to drastic measures when pushed to the edge. The film adaptation, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (Schlöndorff and von Trotta, 1975) keeps these themes similar, but they are ultimately weakened by the film portrayal of Katharina. In the novel, Katharina won’t let herself be a victim: she remains calm and collected throughout most of the police interrogations, she states over and over to truly be in love with Ludwig Götten, the wanted criminal she helped escape, and she claims that even if she goes to jail, it won’t matter because she will just be closer to Götten, and that when they get out, they will be together and start a catering company. The portrayal of Katharina in the film, played by Angela Winkler, is a much more watered-down version of the Katharina in the novel; Winkler’s wide-eyed look and fragile demeanor make her look scared and helpless through the majority of the film, whereas the Katharina in the novel was strong-willed and independent. Winkler was chosen specifically by Böll to play Katharina, despite the concerns of the directors, Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta. This insistence on part of the author to have this specific, fairly unknown actress cast as Katharina limited the ways that the character could be played on screen.
However, this does not mean the movie was an unsuccessful adaptation. The quote from the beginning of the novel, “The characters and action in this story are purely fictitious. Should the description of certain journalistic practices result in a resemblance to the practices of Bild-Zeitung, such resemblance is neither intentional, nor fortuitous, but unavoidable,” also appears in the film. Keeping this sarcastic quote along with the climax of the novel, when Katharina shoots the reporter Tötges for harassing her and ruining her life, is what keeps the themes similar. However, in the novel, Katharina kills Tötges in the heat of the moment as he tries to convince her to have sex with him. Her motivation to kill him was not only because he was a despicable human being who had ruined her life, but because she wanted to make a statement about her determination not to be a victim. Katharina in the film is broken by the media, to a point that causes her to have an seemingly mental break and premeditate the murder of Tötges as a way to get her revenge. This slight change in ending and character development is what dilutes the strength of the theme that people can be driven to drastic violence when pushed to the edge. By letting herself become the victim, the film Katharina makes the escalating violence seem almost inevitable, where the novel Katharina emphasizes the point of the theme by remaining calm and collected throughout the majority of the play, then driven to murder in the end.
In the film adaptation of The Big Sleep, the changes in the character of Vivian Rutledge also changes the theme of the novel. The Big Sleep is a 1939 hardboiled-detective novel by Raymond Chandler, featuring the detective Philip Marlowe as he tries to solve a case of blackmail and murder. In the novel, the character of Vivian Rutledge is a supplementary character who adds plot lines and suspense, but is not as prominent as the movie version of Vivian. In the film adaptation, The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946), Vivian’s character is added to multiple scenes to play up the romance between Vivian and Marlowe, which exists solely in the film. Vivian’s heartfelt, romantic interest in Marlowe significantly softens her character, which ultimately makes her a more generally likeable character. The reshaping of Vivian in the adaptation into a more prominent and likable character was important to the film makers as the film was used as a star-vehicle for Lauren Bacall, who played Vivian in the film.
Nonetheless, one of the main themes of the novel is about the corruption of American society and how that corruption can spread to all people of all social statuses. This theme is subdued in the adaptation mostly because of the reshaping of Vivian’s character. In the novel, Vivian is cunning and secretive, and the reader never really gets inside of her head until the very end, when Marlowe reveals he knows everything and Vivian spills the truth about why she misdirected him throughout the novel. There is a small amount of lust and sex within The Big Sleep (1939), but for the most part, the novel has absolutely no hint of romance whatsoever between Marlowe and any of the female characters in the book, especially Vivian. In the movie, Vivian and Marlowe become a sort of team, going back and forth between deception and sincerity, until the car scene where they confess their love for each other and the film ends with them embracing in a romantic kiss. Vivian’s change of character makes it seem as though corrupt people are capable of change into good-hearted people and the progressive development of Vivian’s character in the film from corrupt to redeemable is what ultimately weakens the theme that corruption in society is a major issue and that the world is unstable.
The novel Devil in a Blue Dress is also a crime-mystery novel written by Walter Mosley. In the novel, Daphne Monet is great example of the “femme fatale” character that is found in more classic film noir: she appears innocent but has her pieces in play the entire time, she is sexually devious, and she kills a man in cold blood. Although the film, Devil in a Blue Dress (Franklin, 1995), is considered to be a neo-noir film, Daphne’s character in the film, played by Jennifer Beals, is completely diluted of complexity and overshadowed by the strong male leads. She loses her facade of innocence for real innocence, and instead of acting for herself, she acts out of love for Todd Carter. The film really attempts to focus on her fidelity and love for Carter as it completely removes the subplot of Daphne stealing money from him and it cuts the sexual relationship between Daphne and Easy, Richard, and her father.
One of the main themes of the novel is the idea of black identity and how one can form a strong identity in an overtly racist and corrupt society. In both the novel and the film, Daphne’s character is revealed to be half white and half black, her real name being Ruby. However, the psychological complexities of Daphne/Ruby in the novel are completely cut in the film adaptation, but this depth of Daphne/Ruby is what provided a strong example of the theme of how hard it is to try and form a cohesive identity in the racist society of the 1940s. The novel Daphne/Ruby had a somewhat split personality and her motivations were driven through herself and her own desire to be seen a certain way. The film reshapes Daphne’s character into a less complicated version, in which Daphne never has the temporary fake accent, never went through sexual abuse as a child, and acts out of sincere love for Todd Carter. This dilution of the Daphne ultimately weakens the theme because it seems as though Daphne’s struggles are external only and that growing up biracial had no effect on her internally, other than that she pretends to be fully white.
An interesting connection of all the female characters in these works is that they all are motivated by love or desire: Katharina Blum is motivated in both novel and film by her love for Ludwig Götten, Vivian Rutledge is motivated, in the novel, by the love for her father/sister, and in the film, by her desire for Marlowe, and Daphne Monet is motivated by, in the novel, the desire to be a white woman, and in the film, by her love for Todd Carter. This technique of having the female character be driven by love or desire, even though it is somewhat cliche, brings to light a new overarching theme that can be applied to all six works: women can be driven to do unlikely, dangerous, or illogical out of passion.
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