 Starring: Jim Caviezel, Guy Pearce, Richard Harris, James Frain,
Director: Kevin Reynolds
Year Of Release: 2002
Plot: Dantes, is falsely accused of treason by his best friend Fernand, who wants Dantes' girlfriend Mercedes for himself. Dantes is imprisoned on the island prison of Chateau d'If for 13 years, where he plots revenge against those who betrayed him. With the help of another prisoner, he escapes the island and proceeds to transform himself into the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo as part of his plan to exact revenge. |
I love Alexandre Dumas. I have to admit that I’m a bit of a philistine when it comes to Victorian literature. I find most of the classics unutterably boring, written in a style where the author seems to think words will die out if they don’t use thousands more than necessary. However Dumas’ works may be long, but they’re fast paced and an absolutely rollicking ride, full of action, drama, sex, emotion and fantastic characters.
In fact the amount of sex and perversion might surprise some who’ve only ever seen the film versions of the likes of The Three Musketeers and The Man In The Iron Mask, which tend to tone things down (except for the 1994 French film, La Reine Margot, which goes full on for the incest and violence in the story of the French royal family in the 16th Century – much of which is based on real life).
Despite Victor Hugo normally being worshipped as the great man of French letter, Dumas is actually the widest read French author ever, selling more books than any other writer the country has ever produced. His success is also obvious on film. While Hugo’s stories such as Hunchback Of Notre Dame and Les Miserables have been adapted for cinema or TV over 130 times, Dumas’ tale are now up to 230 and counting, including over 30 versions of The Three Musketeers – and those are the direct adaptations and not those using the character but not based on the books.
The reason Dumas so popular is the same reason his book are such a good read – they’re exciting, packed with action and feature fun, complex and yet accessibly characters. He’s one of the few writers of his age where it’s not a stretch to say that their novels read like a screenplay, as they really are high adventure.
With Count Of Monte Cristo in particular, it’s become the touchstone for stories of revenge. It’s little surprise really, as it overcomes the inherent problem with revenge stories, which is that in order to remain dramatic, they often tip from seeming like righteous vengeance into sheer unpleasant vindictiveness.
The Count Of Monte Cristo does this through complex character development and clever plotting, where the grievance is so great and the character’s psychology so warped by what’s happened to him, that you understand why he’d spend so long plotting against those who’ve wronged and wanting to kill them in such a dramatic fashion. The book makes Dantes’ story as much his own tragedy as a search for justice. As a result of its mastery, ever since it was published, people have been referring to The Count Of Monte Cristo as the ultimate revenge tale.
It’s been referenced in endless films, books and TV series. Even Jules Verne dedicated one of his stories to Dumas’ novel when he borrowed the plot for Mathias Sandorf. Likewise Lew Wallace acknowledged his debt to the book in writing Ben-Hur. If you read Wallace’s book or watch the film version you can certainly see the similarities, with a man forced into bondage by the betrayal of those close to him, who then spends years plotting his revenge.
More recent films like Sleepers and V For Vendetta make explicit reference to the book, aware of how powerful and clever its story is in dealing with revenge. Even Sweeney Todd, which was made into a film by Tim Burton a couple of years ago, is based on Stephen Sondheim’s musical, which in turn was based on a play by Christopher Bond, where the long-standing tale of a murderous barber was deliberately woven into ideas take from The Count Of Monte Cristo, in order to make the character more sympathetic, rather than just an evil psychopath. Again, when you look at the two narratives, it becomes clear how similar they are, from Benjamin Barker being imprisoned and returning to take his vengeance, to the use of a new identity to get closer to those he wants to kill.
The Count Of Monte Cristo really is the best story about revenge ever written, and although not a masterpiece, Kevin Reynold’s 2002 film is perhaps the best film version. It’s interesting that when Disney gave the movie the greenlight, they imagined they’d get a rollicking adventure tale, full of family friendly action and derring do. That’s the thing about the story though, that it flows so easily and seems so simple, that it’s only when you start to look at it that you realise what a dark and complex story it actually is. When Disney saw the finished film, they realised they had something that was far more unsettling than they’d expected – just like the original novel – and so instead of releasing it under the family friendly Disney banner, it got shunted over to the more adult Touchstone Pictures.
To be honest, while revenge pictures are quite popular at the moment, many of them really could do with studying The Count Of Monte Cristo a bit more, for tips on how to handle vengeance without tipping into OTT unpleasantness. Revenge is ultimately one of the most complex of emotions, as it’s powerful and yet goes against the grain of how people wish to present themselves to the world. The Count Of Monte Cristo explores that brilliantly – with the bitter Dantes disguising himself as the upstanding Count – and makes the like of Death Wish and Taken look amateurish in comparison.
TIM ISAAC
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