Some thoughts about the book

By Christiane Märker

April 19th 2008

 
Now after I have written some articles about the film, I want to speak about the novels from Alexandre Dumas on which the film is based.

I have first read the books many years after I have first watched MITIM. And I noticed that the movie is very different from the book. Actually they had only used the main ideas from the book and have created their own story with it. This fact didn’t change my love for the movie, but the books were also a gain for me. I really like them a lot. The biggest surprise for me was to see how the king Louis is portrayed in the books. You really can’t say that he is the villain in the novels. He is a philander and he pesters the girlfriends of other men – but apart from that he is not a bad guy. As for Philippe, Louis doesn’t know about his existence. So he is innocent at this point. I don’t remember exactly who had sent Philippe to prison first, if it wasn’t Louis, but I think Cardinal Mazarin had something to do with it in the books – if I remember right. However, Louis was innocent. So he is really a victim in the book when Aramis tries to replace him with Philippe. There’s no moral justification of this betrayal against Louis in the book. That’s a big difference to the movie. Only after the conspiracy has failed and Louis is freed from the prison again, he convicts Philippe to live in prison for the rest of his life and to wear an iron mask (Philippe hadn’t worn a mask when he was in prison before). This is not nice but after what he had just went trough, you can somehow understand Louis. It looked to me like Louis’ heart hardened after this experience. It’s really sad. It’s also sad how Philippe ends in the book. He is send to prison and nobody cares for him anymore. He just disappears. That’s also a difference to the movie where the exchange is finally successful. In the books it is not. So in the film Philippe wins and in the books Louis wins. But I always feel so sorry for the other twin. I have to say I hate the end of the books. At least in the movie Louis gets a pardon from Philippe in the end, but there’s no pardon for Philippe in the books. It’s so sad. I also hated Aramis. He uses Philippe for his plans and when he notices that his plan had failed, he just abandons him. Really, you should read the books. Aramis’ behaviour is really disgusting. He is power-thirsty and he cares for nobody except for himself. If there’s a villain in the book, then it’s him. I know that is a surprise, because he is one of the heroes in the movie (even if I think that he shows some signs of egoism there, too), but as I said the books are very different from the movie. However, for me it was wonderful to see how Louis was portrayed in the books. I loved him in the movie and thought that he wasn’t just a cruel monster, but that he also had some feelings. He was vulnerable. I always thought that the Louis in the movie must have a good side, even if it is almost completely overshadowed. But he doesn’t act like a typical cold-hearted villain, because for such a cold-hearted villain he shows too many feelings, even if it is only self-compassion. So I was happy to see that he isn’t portrayed as a bad guy in the books. I’ve read some critics sometime which complained that Leo’s Louis wasn’t bad enough in the movie and they blamed it on Leo’s acting. Well, they were right. We have seen worse villains in film history and so if one wants to see a real malicious villain, one could say that Leo’s acting wasn’t really convincing at this point. (But I also don’t want to hide that I have also read some critics which found Leo very convincing as a villain). But I like villains who are not completely demonic more and so I had no reason to complain about Leo’s performance, on the contrary! And after I had read the books, I admired Leo even more for this performance because now I knew that he had chosen the right direction. Of course his Louis is still far worse than the Louis in the books, but that’s because of the script. He has to be the bad guy in the movie, so Leo couldn’t just portray Louis as a good guy, of course, but his Louis still has feelings and so he still reminds somehow of the Louis from the books. In fact when I read the books I always had Leo in front of my imaginary eye. It wasn’t difficult, it just happened automatically. I thought: “Wow, this Louis is so much like Leo has portrayed him in the movie.” I didn’t expect this, by the way. That’s why this surprise was so pleasant for me. BTW, I wonder if Leo had read the books. Well, now I have said a lot about the story of Louis and Philippe. But there’s another difference between the movie and the books. Actually in the books the story of the man in the iron mask is just a sub-plot (Surprise!). The focus is on the king’s affair with Louise de la Vallière (Christine in the movie). Just like in the movie Louis steals her from Raoul in the books. But even here the things are a bit different. First, Louis doesn’t send Raoul to the war. He just sends him to the English court. So he doesn’t murder Raoul. But what’s even more important is that in the books Louise (or rather Christine) isn’t very excited about the idea to marry Raoul. She likes him very much but she doesn’t wants to marry him. On the other hand she really falls in love with the king. Again almost the opposite of what we see in the movie. It was very fascinating for me to read this. However, as I have already said, this all doesn’t change my love for the movie. I love the movie and the books. I just take them as two different and independent stories, which both have their attraction. I see them as two different ways of interpreting the same story, both are nice. But there’s a connecting link between them and that’s the character of Louis, thanks to Leo. Of course that’s just my personal opinion. Maybe there are others who don’t see similarities between the king in the books and how Leo portrayed him. That would be fine with me. However, in my opinion there are similarities. And I love it.

Chrissi

 

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