Death on the Nile: Novel and Film Essay

Agatha Christie’s 1937 novel Death on the Nile (adapted by Nancy Taylor for Penguin Readers in 2008) tells the murder mystery novel of a rich, upper-class and young woman her name is Linnet Ridgeway who marries the fiancà © of her best friend Jacqueline. Linnet and her husband Simon go to Egypt to spend their honeymoon there. Jacqueline feels envy from Linnet because she steals her fiancà © from her, so she keeps following them everywhere they go. In the middle of the trip Linnet murders while she is on her honeymoon in the Nile. There are many suspects on the boat because many people hate her and have a motive for killing her. The detective Poirot who is in the same boat tries to figure out who kills Linnet and solves the problem. One major theme of the novel is how envy leads the person to kill others. The movie version of Agatha Christie’s popular novel Death on the Nile was released in September 1978, produced by Paramant Picture, directed by John Guillermin, and adapted for the screen by Anthony Shaffer. In this paper I will compare and contrast the manner in which one element has been adapted by the filmmakers and I will offer a hypothesis about why filmmakers make this change; in addition, I will synthesize the opinions of two film critics. One significant plot element that appears in the novel and that adapted for the film version concerns Colonel Race. The character of Colonel Race in the novel is overall similarity from the film. In the novel, Colonel Race is a man who travels round the world and solving important cases for the British government. The first time he shows in the novel is in Abu Simbel when he visits the temple; whereas, in the film the first time he shows in the hotel in Cairo with the first group. Also in the novel he has a motive for being in the boat and it is to follow Signor Richetti who is a criminal and pretending to be another person with a fake job, but in the film there isn’t any reason for Colonel Race to be on the boat with them. On the other h and, there are three similarities between the novel and the film about Colonel Race character. In novel and in the film Poirot is an old friend of Colonel Race and they meet each other after a long period of time. Also in the novel and the film Colonel helps his old friend Poirot who’s a detective to find out the crime and Colonel is monitoring others to catch who kills Linnet, Mrs. Otterbourne, and Miss Louise. Also in the novel and the film, there isn’t any motive for Colonel to kill Linnet. But, why did the adaptors make these changes? Perhaps the film adaptors couldn’t have forgotten how Colonel Race is in the book. For example, they couldn’t have forgotten that Colonel Race was in the novel for a secret mission to look for a criminal named Signor Richetti. Also, they couldn’t have forgotten that Colonel Race showed in the second group in half way through the trip in Abu Simbel. They may have believed that if they remove those events in the film, they will make it easily to understand what is going in the film. Also, not to make the movie complicated by adding more events. Maybe if Colonel Race showed in the second group, he will steal the audience attention from Jacqueline when she showed again in the second group. Also the audience will keep asking the question â€Å"Who’s this?!† in addition, Poirot will have someone to talk with from the beginning of the film and to show how they are very close to each other. In addition, they didn’t mention a criminal who was following by Colonel Race to catch him. That’s why they will confuse the audience because they will not know to focus on a criminal Signor Richetti himself or on the other criminal who killed Linnet, Mrs. Otterbourne, and Miss Louise. Thus, it seems likely that the film makers made their decision possibly to prevent confusion. Therefore, I think the decision to remove th ese events was good. Overall, the way the filmmakers changed these events is great and well thought out. Reactions to the writing of Anthony Shaffer by two critics appear to be almost diametrically opposed. In his 2011 contemporary review in The Stop Button, anonymous critic rates the film negatively overall and he has some comments about writing. The anonymous critic says, â€Å"The point of these Poirot films isn’t necessarily the filmmaking or the writing, it’s the all-star cast-it must be the cast, since relatively nothing happens for the first hour.† The anonymous critic thinks that Shaffer writing is not good enough and it is apparently not as strong as he was expecting. Actually, the anonymous critic seems that he doesn’t enjoy the writing section. Anthony Clarke opinion in his DVD.net.au review is the same as the anonymous opinion. Clarke has some reservations about the writing; he has certain comments about Peter Ustinov. Clarke says, â€Å"The plot has been trimmed down from Agatha Christie’s original, the novel seems widely implausible.† Clarke’s review of Shaffer’s work is overall not good. At most, one might see the two opinions about Shaffer’s writing as negative since an anonymous critic says the word â€Å"Isn’t necessarily†, and Anthony Clarke thinks that the writing is also negative when she says â€Å"Trimmed down.† The two responses to the writing of Anthony Shaffer in Death on the Nile are more similar than they are different. One major theme of the novel that I recognized and relate to is that how envy leads the person to kill others. Throughout the novel and film, Jacqueline feels envy from Linnet because she steals her fiancà © and marries him. Jacqueline decides to bother Linnet and destroys her life. Especially there are many people hate Linnet and feel envy from her because of many reasons. At the end Linnet murders by someone who feels envy from her and hates her very much. I can think of many examples of people who feel envy from others and finally the result is murdering them, but one example stands out strongly among all others. I knew my cousin neighbor and they are from Kuwait. Their neighbor called Fatima and she has three small children. One day Fatima husband told her that he want to marry another woman because our religion says that man can marry maximum four women. His wife Fatima can’t prevent him so she kept silence all the time and her heart full of envy from her husband and the woman who will be his second wife. Her husband decided to do a small wedding party in the tent. On the day of his wedding, Fatima wanted to destroy her husband wedding party. In the middle of the wedding, she set the tent on fire by using gasoline gallons. At the end, her husband and his new wife also some other guests died because what she had done. The police came and took her to the jail because it’s a murder case. So that, Fatima destroyed her life and her husband and others life because of her envy. So I suggest that people should take the life in easy way. They shouldn’t feel envy about others because the result will harm and destroy them and others. I advise people to try to delete the envy from their hearts and to accept the reality of their life. People who feel envy from others they must know that everything in this world happens for a reason and they can’t ignore their destiny and they have to accept it. Works Cited Christie, Agatha. Death on the Nile. Ed. Nancy Taylor. Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited, 2008. Print. Clarke, Anthony. â€Å"Death on the Nile.† DVD.net.au. DVD.net.au, n.d. Web. 24 July 2011. Death on the Nile. Dir. John Guillermin. Perf. Peter Ustinov, Lois Chiles, Mia Farrow, Simon MacCorkindale, David Niven. 1978. DVD. Anchor Bay Entertainment, 2002. â€Å"Death on the Nile.† The Stop Button. The Stop Button, 23 Feb. 2011. Web. 24 July 2011.