The Scarlet Letter (DVD)

...on Nathaniel Hawthorne's novels of the same name. Set in Puritan New England, it follows the life of hester Prynne (Demi Moore) a young married woman with an illegitimate child. It is a vastly different piece from the original novel, largely due to the differences between our culture's and Hawthorne's. Hawtrhorne wrote his novel for a largely puritan audience, with strong moral values. A woman who commits adultery ould be almost as severy condemned ...
...a love affair, and so the film is geared for us and our expectations. We think little of adultry these days, and prize love about honour, duty and the such. Hawthorne's book shows little of the love affair, but instead focuses on the consequences, as Hester's life becomes increasingly painful, and her lover is wracked with guilt. In the book, a sense of having sinned prevents the lovers from escaping to start a new life. The film however is able ...

Bryn_Pearson 08.11.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of The Scarlet Letter (DVD)

...say that I absolutely love the book by Nathaniel Hawthorne, I enjoy reading the book because of it's interesting characters and the great romance plot that goes on. So when I saw that there was a movie out on The Scarlet Letter, I thought it was a great chance to actually watch the characters in the book come alive on the silver screen, but the film, with Demi Moor and Gary Oldman, was such a disappointment. It wasn't even that the acting was bad ...
...book, then you'd think that the story would follow the book, but in this movie, I would say that about 85 percent of it was all made up. There were scenes in the movie that I simply didn't understand. There was a scene with a black girl, a slave I suppose, was undressing herself infront of this brightly red bird (sorry I don't know what kind of bird it was), and the whole scene was just so confusing to me...I'm sure it contained some kind of symbolism ...

CatFood 21.12.2000 (19.12.2000) · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of The Scarlet Letter (DVD)