Dangerous Liaisons Essay

Comparison and Differences of Dangerous Liaisons Novel and Film The film Dangerous Liaison, directed by Stephen Frears remains just about faithful to the epistolary novel, Dangerous Liaisons, by Choderlos de Laclos. Stephen Frears does "betray" the novel towards the end of the film but, it makes the ending that much more better and enticing. The film represents what the epistolary novel only hints at us readers. The novel is composed of letters where we only get a sense of the characters thoughts and emotions. The film tries to put those words into action but only showing one version of each scene. It is different in which the writer of the novel is using words while the film maker is using pictures to describe what's happening. With this obstacle alone, I think the film maker did a great job creating the film. The movie and film have the same story line in which two immoral aristocrats create disorder on the innocent people around them, corrupting everything and everyone in their paths. One being Madame de Merteuil who wants to get revenge on a former lover by arranging the seduction of his bride to be, Cecile Volanges. The other immoral aristocrat is Valmont, he only wants the pleasure of knowing that he can make a moral woman break her marital vows. They play a game of seduction that comes with lots of sex and violence, the game leads to Valmont physical death and Merteuil's reputations death, in the film, and her getting ill in the novel. In the novel not one of the characters is described enough to allow us, as readers, to create a portrait in our minds based on the text. However, in the film it leaves nothing to our imagination, not the faces, clothing or even the women's naked bodies. Laclos spends little to no time in the novel describing clothes and hairdos which we associate with a woman's attractiveness and look. When first seeing the film I was surprised with all the makeup the woman wore and their extraordinary clothing. The other