TGM Adaptation Review
On the week before winter break, Our class watched The Glass Menagerie. There were notable similarities, and differences between the 1973 movie adaptation of The Glass Menagerie, directed by Anthony Harvey, and the original play script by Tennessee Williams. The movie starts out with no opening monologue. Tom is silent throughout the entire opening scene. He never enters the house, but instead we see him walking down an alley outside. He sits down to smoke, and reads a newspaper. This is the present day. The flash back then starts, and we are brought into the first scene of the play. This is the same in both the movie and book.
Tom, Amanda, and Laura Wingfield live in poverty together in St. Louis, Missouri. Tom, and Laura are both Amanda's children, and their father had walked out on them. Tom is forced to become the breadwinner of the family. He has been providing money from his job at the shoe warehouse for the family to get by. But Tom has aspirations of having adventure in his life, and he feels it is not being fulfilled by his current situation. Tom escapes his nagging mother by going out to the unrealistic world of the movies, and drinking. This is Tom's temporary release of the stress he feels. His sister, Laura is a introvert with a slight limp. Her condition of pleurosis made it impossible for her to see herself normal. Amanda who lives in her own world, gives Tom the okay to leave once he finds Laura a gentlemen caller. This is when Laura's high school crush, Jim O'Connor comes into the play. Jim attempts to break Laura out of her shyness, which it seems as if he succeeds. Jim then later explains that he can never be with Laura because he is already engaged to a girl named Betty. When Amanda finds this out she throws a fit at Tom. This is enough for Tom to leave for good. Many years later Tom returns to reflect on the decisions he made. We can hear some regret in the way he talks about Laura. This is how the play ends in the present day.
The setting, themes, and plot are all very similar throughout the movie and play script. Director, Anthony Harvey emphasizes the conflict between Tom and Amanda by making her act out her role very annoying and persistent. There are constant themes of lying, and inability to expect reality. Almost all the main characters lie at one point in the play, and movie. Laura lies to Amanda about still going to business school. Tom lies to Amanda saying he doesn't drink, and Jim plays a game with Laura with later telling her he is already engaged. Amanda is never able to expect the fact that Laura is different than most people. She simply doesn't want to hear it from Tom. The staging of the play was cleverly done in the movie. There were multiple times where the light reflected the mood of the movie. It seemed whenever there was conflict, the house was dark and lit by candle. During the day the house was a lot more brighter. When Tom apologized to Amanda the staging was light and seemed friendly.
The actors that played in the movie seemed old for their parts. Amanda looked relatively young compared to her two children. I'm not sure if Anthony Harvey intentionally did this, but I thought it was worth noting. Jim is very upbeat in the movie. Laura also seemed to be very comfortable with him. Although she was still awkward when she was first introduced. When Laura took a piece of chewing gum, she took a small piece of the stick. I thought that was very strange as well. Laura gave Jim the entire horse in the movie, compared to only giving Jim the horn in the play script . I thought this was interesting. Although Laura was strange, I don't think the movie shows the fullness of Laura's introverted ways like the original playwright.
Overall I thought the movie adaptation had some interesting twists when it came to how the characters were portrayed, and acted, but for the most part it was very similar to the original playwright. The dialogue between the characters followed the original script for the most part. I thought Anthony Harvey did a wonderful job of staging, and capturing the moods with the lighting. When reading the play I visualized the house to look something along the lines of what the house actually looked like in the movie. I thought this was pretty cool. All the changes that the movie had, played its own unique role into this adaptation of The Glass Menagerie.
Tom, Amanda, and Laura Wingfield live in poverty together in St. Louis, Missouri. Tom, and Laura are both Amanda's children, and their father had walked out on them. Tom is forced to become the breadwinner of the family. He has been providing money from his job at the shoe warehouse for the family to get by. But Tom has aspirations of having adventure in his life, and he feels it is not being fulfilled by his current situation. Tom escapes his nagging mother by going out to the unrealistic world of the movies, and drinking. This is Tom's temporary release of the stress he feels. His sister, Laura is a introvert with a slight limp. Her condition of pleurosis made it impossible for her to see herself normal. Amanda who lives in her own world, gives Tom the okay to leave once he finds Laura a gentlemen caller. This is when Laura's high school crush, Jim O'Connor comes into the play. Jim attempts to break Laura out of her shyness, which it seems as if he succeeds. Jim then later explains that he can never be with Laura because he is already engaged to a girl named Betty. When Amanda finds this out she throws a fit at Tom. This is enough for Tom to leave for good. Many years later Tom returns to reflect on the decisions he made. We can hear some regret in the way he talks about Laura. This is how the play ends in the present day.
The setting, themes, and plot are all very similar throughout the movie and play script. Director, Anthony Harvey emphasizes the conflict between Tom and Amanda by making her act out her role very annoying and persistent. There are constant themes of lying, and inability to expect reality. Almost all the main characters lie at one point in the play, and movie. Laura lies to Amanda about still going to business school. Tom lies to Amanda saying he doesn't drink, and Jim plays a game with Laura with later telling her he is already engaged. Amanda is never able to expect the fact that Laura is different than most people. She simply doesn't want to hear it from Tom. The staging of the play was cleverly done in the movie. There were multiple times where the light reflected the mood of the movie. It seemed whenever there was conflict, the house was dark and lit by candle. During the day the house was a lot more brighter. When Tom apologized to Amanda the staging was light and seemed friendly.
The actors that played in the movie seemed old for their parts. Amanda looked relatively young compared to her two children. I'm not sure if Anthony Harvey intentionally did this, but I thought it was worth noting. Jim is very upbeat in the movie. Laura also seemed to be very comfortable with him. Although she was still awkward when she was first introduced. When Laura took a piece of chewing gum, she took a small piece of the stick. I thought that was very strange as well. Laura gave Jim the entire horse in the movie, compared to only giving Jim the horn in the play script . I thought this was interesting. Although Laura was strange, I don't think the movie shows the fullness of Laura's introverted ways like the original playwright.
Overall I thought the movie adaptation had some interesting twists when it came to how the characters were portrayed, and acted, but for the most part it was very similar to the original playwright. The dialogue between the characters followed the original script for the most part. I thought Anthony Harvey did a wonderful job of staging, and capturing the moods with the lighting. When reading the play I visualized the house to look something along the lines of what the house actually looked like in the movie. I thought this was pretty cool. All the changes that the movie had, played its own unique role into this adaptation of The Glass Menagerie.
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