Movie Summary The Scarlet Letter Essay Example

Movie Summary The Scarlet Letter Paper Movie director Roland Joffe’s renders a movie of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, in 1995. The movie uses the phrase â€Å"free adaption† to explain its source and perhaps to let the audience know that this movie is not exactly as the storyline in the classic novel. When Hawthorne publishes his novel, in 1850, the book enrages the religious community because the leaders condemn, specifically, any Puritan woman giving birth to a baby and not married; however, today, critics praise the novel. Nevertheless, movie critics pan the movie calling it â€Å"an oversexed melodrama .A leading online film critics pollster, Rotten Tomatoes, states that this historical drama takes the novel’s story of the disastrous results of an affair between a Puritan woman and a pastor and adds in plenty of sex, violence, and other ‘modern’ touches.† Personally, the movie makes for good watching. To begin with, Demi Moore plays Hester Prynne; Robert Duvall plays Roger Chillingworth; and Gary Oldman plays Reverend. Arthur Dimmesdale. If he or she wants answers to questions he or she has after reading the novel, then this movie answers those questions.Sacvan Bercovitch states, â€Å"the movie is a contemporary reader’s fantasy about everything he or she wanted to know about the Scarlet Letter, but was afraid to ask in class.Anyone reading the novel has to come to terms with extra-textual speculations, and this film sets out to provide a context appropriate to our times. In other words, what I called extra-textual explanation is a commentary on our culture† (p. 1). The movie has plenty of action. There are scenes of sex and violence: carnage, domestic violence, a homicide, explicit bodily torment, deliberate physical or psychological injury, a scalping, a suicide, an attempted sexual assault, several more in depth love-scenes, a lengthy bathing scene. These kinds of actions are what most movie-goers want to see in a movie. We will write a custom essay sample on Movie Summary The Scarlet Letter specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Movie Summary The Scarlet Letter specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Movie Summary The Scarlet Letter specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer