The Grapes of Wrath (From Hell (DVD))

Member Name: MykReeve

Product:	From Hell (DVD)
Date:	08/05/02 (1543 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Impressive cinematography, Beautiful set

Disadvantages: Shoddy dialogue, plot and acting, Roving accents, Ineptly adapted from graphic novel

Recently released on region 1 DVD (US and Canada), 'From Hell' was adapted from the graphic novel of the same name, which was written by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. The story visits the Victorian London of Jack the Ripper, and follows an inspector's investigation into the identity of London's most notorious serial killer.

COMPARING THE NOVEL AND MOVIE

If, like myself, you were a fan of Moore and Campbell's comic books, then you greeted the news of the books' adaptation into a movie with great enthusiasm, anxiously awaiting the theatrical release, anticipating sophisticated characterisation and a complicated multi-layered storyline. It seems many critics had the same anticipations and, upon the film's release at American cinemas, the movie was accompanied by, if not disappointed, then at least, unenthusiastic reviews.

So, when the film eventually reached British cinemas, I decided I wouldn't bother rushing to see it, and instead wait for the DVD release. At least then I'd have the option to get some of my money back, by selling it on, if I was disappointed.

The main, fundamental difference between the movie and the graphic novel is that of the story's main focus. The movie follows the chief police investigator, Inspector Abberline (played by Johnny Depp) as he attempts to uncover the identity of the murderer, as he preys on the city's prostitutes.

The book, however, focuses on the murderer (whom, for obvious reasons, I won't name here) following his descent into insanity as he carries out the murders - the driving force not so much being whodunit, so much as why and how.

In the book, Inspector Abberline doesn't even appear until Chapter 6, and is far from the focus of the story. He is not the young man with the opium and absinthe addictions portrayed by Depp in the movie, but rather a middle-aged man, who actually doesn't get very close to identifying the
identity of the murderer. Abberline in the graphic novel is also unfettered by the drug-fuelled visions that plague the movie's lead character, a feature that was presumably only introduced to allow depiction of the violence that our hero wasn't there to witness.

The film also ends very differently from the book, at least with regard to two of the major characters. Again, I can't dwell on this without giving away too much of the story, so I will refrain from doing so.

Essentially, these are the fundamental differences between the graphic novel and the movie. As you can tell, they are pretty fundamental to the plot development and portrayal of the story, sufficiently so that further comparison would seem counterproductive. The two were produced for very different audiences - the movie for a broad market, and the book for the introspective, intelligent comic audience - and this is reflected in the difference in focus between the two.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY

The identity of Jack the Ripper in both the movie and the graphic novel is the same - using the conspiracy theory posited by "Ripperologist" Stephen Knight, in his 1977 book 'Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution'. Taken at face value, the theory is not an overwhelmingly persuasive one, and is largely rejected by the Ripperology community. Nonetheless, it has a certain appeal, and is reasonably entertainingly presented in both formats.

The beauty of the story of Jack the Ripper is that there is no widely accepted identity for the murderer, but a good number of possible suspects. This means that conspiracy theories gain vastly more plausibility than they do in cases such as the murder of JFK where the "established" truth of the murderer is accompanied by overwhelming evidence. In these cases, conspiracy theories both have to explain the framing of the widely accepted murderer, as well as suggesting a robust theory for an alternate killer.
In this case, a conspiracy theory can be as wild as possible, and doesn't have to explain why the blame was pointed elsewhere...

Before writing 'From Hell' Alan Moore read a good deal of literature on the theme, and consulted a large volume of contemporary material from the time of the murders, as is evidenced by the wealth of annotations at the back of the book. Moore is well known for accompanying his notes for comic strips with copious amounts of information for his illustrators - and Eddie Campbell's illustrations are rich with detail, bringing Victorian London to life with his unique spidery style of illustration.

The film's makers seem to have largely drawn their inspiration from Moore and Campbell's work, with many scenes exactly copying panels from the graphic novel. The atmosphere is absolutely first-rate, with Whitechapel's fog-filled streets perfectly reproduced on screen.

The film was made near Prague, in the Czech Republic, where the directors had hoped to find streets similar to those of Victorian London. However, rapidly discovering that the modernisation of the city had already made that impossible, they were forced to rebuild the cobbled streets of Whitechapel in a field several kilometres outside Prague. The resulting set is something that the movie-makers are rightfully proud of - the locations where the murders took place are accurate to the sketches and photographs taken at the time, and the area around Spitalfields Market looks superb, complete with a truncated Christ Church (the rest of which was computer generated in the final film).

THE MOVIE

The story, doing my best to ignore my preconceptions from the book and prior reading into the story of Jack the Ripper, is reasonably well told, but does seem to have lost something on the big screen. Maybe it's just that I've become desensitised, but I didn't really get the sense of lingering terror or horror that I
really anticipated from a film on this subject, nor was I ever really engaged by the film. The book, by contrast, manages a powerful, discomforting tension that the movie never really manages.

The main characters in the movie really never seem to be deeply developed. Abberline, for example, is established as the drug-addicted inspector given to wild, but accurate, visions, but we never really learn that much about him. In fact, there's little to distinguish Depp's performance as Abberline from his performance as Ichabod Crane in 'Sleepy Hollow', other than his (ahem) English accent.

I would also have preferred a little deeper insight into the murderer's deepening psychosis. Because the movie strives to keep the murderer's identity a secret for as long as possible, his character really doesn't get the chance to develop that he really needs to explain the increasing depravity and gruesomeness of his deeds, particularly his latter crimes. Needless to say, this is given adequate time and coverage in the 400 page graphic novel... but not in a two-hour movie.

Similarly, the dialogue is largely dreadful. Listen to some of the background catcalls from the prostitutes on the streets, or the rubberneckers around the bodies of the victims, and you'll probably be amazed at what inept exclamations slipped through into the final cut. Similarly, Robbie Coltrane's character, Godley is given some spectacularly clumsy lined to deliver - you'll probably wince as much as I did when he announces "Once more unto the breach, dear friends," to the puzzlement of Bow Street's finest.

By way of acting, the film's actors produce adequate performances for the most part. However, it has to be said that the Johnny Depp (playing Inspector Abberline) and Heather Graham (playing Mary Kelly) really aren't that great, and their accents are, at times, squirm-inducingly awful, meandering around the country
from Devon to the East End. Decent performances are offered by British stalwarts, Ian Richardson (as Sir Charles Warren) and Ian "Bilbo" Holm (as Sir William Gull).

As mentioned above, the film's most compelling aspect, however, isn't the story or the players, but the scenery, which is truly outstanding. The film is about as atmospheric as you could hope for, with some really first rate cinematography making full use of the huge Prague set that was constructed for the movie. The computer-generated shots compositing London's contemporary landmarks into the picture also work well to set the scene.

CONCLUSIONS

In many ways, I was disappointed by 'From Hell', mainly because the graphic novel from which it developed was so good. The movie takes a story made interesting and unusual by its focus on the murderer, and turns it into a slightly unusual, but not notably so, whodunit. As the film's producer says, a mainstream Hollywood movie could never focus on a serial killer, and so it was inevitable that the story would undergo substantial changes in its movement to the big screen. It's a shame that these changes have led to the story becoming so pedestrian, and does make you wonder if they bothered to actually read the graphic novel, before actually buying the rights to it.

If you hadn't read the graphic novel first, or knew relatively little of the background to the Ripper murders, there's a chance that you might find the tale of 'From Hell' to be compelling viewing, but I doubt it. If you have read and enjoyed the printed version, chances are you'll be disappointed.

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