The most underrated American author of the 20th Century is Carson McCullers. If you look at the opening page of "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" you will be amazed how quickly everything becomes as vivid as a picture. If you read "Clock Without Hands" you will not even notice the seamless merging of things that are tragic and zany, and one of the most original ways a bigot could ever undo himself on radio.
"Member of the Wedding" was one of her few novels, and the only one she ever adapted into a play. Even though McCullers was very much like the character Frankie, there was nothing autobiographical in it, yet the need of Frankie to belong to a "we of me" was something the author searched for her entire brief life, and she never communicates that longing more powerfully than here.
Although the film has the three stars of the play, Ethel Waters, Julie Harris and Brandon De Wilde, in the same roles on film, it incorporates material from the novel--specifically, Frankie's disastrous attempt at a liaison with a soldier--and so feels cinematic. The play doesn't have Frankie having to be thrown out of her brother's and new sister in law's car; the film does, and it is all the more devastating because of it.
The "We of Me" speech, which Julie Harris was directed to deliver almost as a prayer, is something anyone who has ever experienced loneliness will be moved by.
Distubringly, people have a tendency to take what McCullers did and essentially rewrite it. That is what happened to "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." As with works of Mark Twain or Mary W. Shelley, people feel an obligation to bring McCullers work "up to date" or "make it more dramatic." The sadness of this is it's not necessary. Novels like Huckleberry Finn, Frankenstein, or the Heart Is a Lonely Hunter have in them all that is needed for an effective movie. When this novel/play was put to the screen that same mistake was not made and we are all the luckier for it.
One minor bit of trivia: McCullers based the character of John Henry on author, friend, and fellow southerner, Truman Capote.
"Member of the Wedding" was one of her few novels, and the only one she ever adapted into a play. Even though McCullers was very much like the character Frankie, there was nothing autobiographical in it, yet the need of Frankie to belong to a "we of me" was something the author searched for her entire brief life, and she never communicates that longing more powerfully than here.
Although the film has the three stars of the play, Ethel Waters, Julie Harris and Brandon De Wilde, in the same roles on film, it incorporates material from the novel--specifically, Frankie's disastrous attempt at a liaison with a soldier--and so feels cinematic. The play doesn't have Frankie having to be thrown out of her brother's and new sister in law's car; the film does, and it is all the more devastating because of it.
The "We of Me" speech, which Julie Harris was directed to deliver almost as a prayer, is something anyone who has ever experienced loneliness will be moved by.
Distubringly, people have a tendency to take what McCullers did and essentially rewrite it. That is what happened to "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." As with works of Mark Twain or Mary W. Shelley, people feel an obligation to bring McCullers work "up to date" or "make it more dramatic." The sadness of this is it's not necessary. Novels like Huckleberry Finn, Frankenstein, or the Heart Is a Lonely Hunter have in them all that is needed for an effective movie. When this novel/play was put to the screen that same mistake was not made and we are all the luckier for it.
One minor bit of trivia: McCullers based the character of John Henry on author, friend, and fellow southerner, Truman Capote.