Elizabeth Bowen’s The Heat of the Day - Comparing Scenes in the Movie and Book

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Recommended: Creative writing of war

Elizabeth Bowen’s The Heat of the Day - Comparing Scenes in the Movie and Book

With the Nazi invasion of France in the early 1940s, Europe became a very turbulent and dangerous place. There were many concerns of the people of all the countries of the continent: bombings, invasion and especially espionage. In her novel The Heat of the Day, Elizabeth Bowen describes the unsettling and uneasiness that were apparent in England during the war. Although Bowen gives us an eloquent description of the happens in England, readers get a much better view on the happens in certain scenes by viewing the adaptation of the novel into film.

Although there are many scenes to compare between the film and the novel, the scene chosen for this study will be the funeral of Cousin Francis and the first appearance of Harrison in the movie. This occurs in the fourth chapter of the novel. A discussion of Robert and Stella’s conversation in his room at Holme Dene will also occur.

The first scene begins, in the film, with Stella walking into the church when the funeral is about to begin. We see that she chooses to sit on the right side of the coffin where we can only assume that the family is meant sit. Next we see the camera pan to a shot of a man sitting on the opposite side of the isle. At this point, unless the audience has read the book, we have no idea who this man is. The funeral commences, ends and the next shot we see is the members of the funeral procession heading to the post funeral gathering. One odd thing that we must note at this point is that the unknown man who sat in the back of the church does not walk with anyone else in the party: he seems to just be follower. Many things occur at this point in the film. We learn that Stella’s son Roderick has become the sole person to inherit Cousin Francis’ home, Mount Morris, according to the family lawyer. We also discover that no one in the whole funeral party knows who the man who sat in the back of the church is. It is here in which we learn that the man is called Harrison after he introduces himself to Stella.

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