Dec 15, 2009

Ethan Frome | Adaptations

In 1993 Ethan Frome was made into a film written by Richard Nelson, directed by James Madden, and starring Liam Neeson as Ethan, Patricia Arquette as Mattie, and Joan Allen as Zeena. The movie successfully conveys the icy atmosphere and the grim poverty of the Fromes, and it leaves one with the overwhelming feeling of lives that have been lost or used up by cruel circumstances. It is not a literal rendering of Wharton's novella. Many changes have been made in the adaptation. The stranger from another place is no longer a visiting engineer who is spending a winter in Starkfield but...