The Transformation of a Pinter Screenplay: Freedom and Calculators in The French Lieutenant's Woman

Abstract

In 1980, more than ten years after John Fowles asked Karel Reisz to direct The French Lieutenant's Woman, the film was finally made, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. The writing of the script and the shooting of the film are described, by all sources, as an era of good feelings. Reisz speaks of Fowles with affection ("John was a sort of uncle to the project"), and of Pinter with awe ("He was an angel!"). Fowles likes the film "very much," and he does so with a full awareness of the way his novel has been condensed: "Harold's cut the book marvelously. Masses he wrote out of it" (Garis, p. 48). (It is rare to find a writer who tolerates, much less singles out for applause, the wayan adapter has shortened the original.) Pinter, who has always felt "substantial respect" for the novel, acknowledges "very valuable" talks with Fowles and "a very free and open working relationship" with Reisz, to whom he gives credit for the most remarked-upon aspect of the screenplay: the modem episodes about the making of the film within the film (Garis, pp. 52, 54). A photograph of the" 'French Lieutenant's' men" reveals three intent, friendly faces, three artists who labored, separately and together, to create a work they all admire.