Death on the Nile: Novel and Film

Agatha Christie's 1937 unique Death on the Nile (adjusted by Nancy Taylor for Penguin Readers in 2008) tells the murder mystery novel of a rich, upper-class and girl her name is Linnet Ridgeway who marries the fiancé of her best friend Jacqueline. Linnet and her partner Simon go to Egypt to spend their honeymoon there. Jacqueline feels envy from Linnet since she steals her fiancé from her, so she keeps following them everywhere they go. In the middle of the journey Linnet murders while she is on her honeymoon in the Nile.

There are lots of suspects on the boat due to the fact that lots of people dislike her and have an intention for killing her. The investigator Poirot who remains in the exact same boat attempts to find out who kills Linnet and resolves the issue. One significant theme of the novel is how envy leads the individual to eliminate others. The motion picture variation of Agatha Christie's popular unique Death on the Nile was released in September 1978, produced by Paramant Image, directed by John Guillermin, and adapted for the screen by Anthony Shaffer.

Get quality help now

WriterBelle

Verified writer

Proficient in: Death

4.7 (657)

“ Really polite, and a great writer! Task done as described and better, responded to all my questions promptly too! ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

In this paper I will compare and contrast the way in which one element has been adjusted by the filmmakers and I will provide a hypothesis about why filmmakers make this modification; in addition, I will manufacture the opinions of 2 film critics. One considerable plot element that appears in the novel which adjusted for the film variation issues Colonel Race. The character of Colonel Race in the novel is total similarity from the movie.

In the unique, Colonel Race is a guy who takes a trip round the world and resolving important cases for the British federal government. The very first time he displays in the novel is in Abu Simbel when he goes to the temple; whereas, in the movie the very first time he displays in the hotel in Cairo with the very first group. Likewise in the novel he has an intention for being in the boat and it is to follow Signor Richetti who is a criminal and pretending to be another person with a fake task, however in the film there isn't any reason for Colonel Race to be on the boat with them. On the other hand, there are three resemblances in between the unique and the movie about Colonel Race character.

In novel and in the film Poirot is an old friend of Colonel Race and they meet each other after a long period of time. Also in the novel and the film Colonel helps his old friend Poirot who’s a detective to find out the crime and Colonel is monitoring others to catch who kills Linnet, Mrs. Otterbourne, and Miss Louise. Also in the novel and the film, there isn’t any motive for Colonel to kill Linnet. But, why did the adaptors make these changes? Perhaps the film adaptors couldn’t have forgotten how Colonel Race is in the book. For example, they couldn’t have forgotten that Colonel Race was in the novel for a secret mission to look for a criminal named Signor Richetti. Also, they couldn’t have forgotten that Colonel Race showed in the second group in half way through the trip in Abu Simbel.

They may have believed that if they remove those events in the film, they will make it easily to understand what is going in the film. Also, not to make the movie complicated by adding more events. Maybe if Colonel Race showed in the second group, he will steal the audience attention from Jacqueline when she showed again in the second group. Also the audience will keep asking the question “Who’s this?!” in addition, Poirot will have someone to talk with from the beginning of the film and to show how they are very close to each other. In addition, they didn’t mention a criminal who was following by Colonel Race to catch him. That’s why they will confuse the audience because they will not know to focus on a criminal Signor Richetti himself or on the other criminal who killed Linnet, Mrs. Otterbourne, and Miss Louise. Thus, it seems likely that the film makers made their decision possibly to prevent confusion. Therefore, I think the decision to remove these events was good.

Overall, the way the filmmakers changed these events is great and well thought out. Reactions to the writing of Anthony Shaffer by two critics appear to be almost diametrically opposed. In his 2011 contemporary review in The Stop Button, anonymous critic rates the film negatively overall and he has some comments about writing. The anonymous critic says, “The point of these Poirot films isn’t necessarily the filmmaking or the writing, it’s the all-star cast-it must be the cast, since relatively nothing happens for the first hour.” The anonymous critic thinks that Shaffer writing is not good enough and it is apparently not as strong as he was expecting. Actually, the anonymous critic seems that he doesn’t enjoy the writing section. Anthony Clarke opinion in his DVD.net.au review is the same as the anonymous opinion. Clarke has some reservations about the writing; he has certain comments about Peter Ustinov.

Clarke says, “The plot has been trimmed down from Agatha Christie’s original, the novel seems widely implausible.” Clarke’s review of Shaffer’s work is overall not good. At most, one might see the two opinions about Shaffer’s writing as negative since an anonymous critic says the word “Isn’t necessarily”, and Anthony Clarke thinks that the writing is also negative when she says “Trimmed down.” The two responses to the writing of Anthony Shaffer in Death on the Nile are more similar than they are different. One major theme of the novel that I recognized and relate to is that how envy leads the person to kill others. Throughout the novel and film, Jacqueline feels envy from Linnet because she steals her fiancé and marries him. Jacqueline decides to bother Linnet and destroys her life.

Especially there are many people hate Linnet and feel envy from her because of many reasons. At the end Linnet murders by someone who feels envy from her and hates her very much. I can think of many examples of people who feel envy from others and finally the result is murdering them, but one example stands out strongly among all others. I knew my cousin neighbor and they are from Kuwait. Their neighbor called Fatima and she has three small children. One day Fatima husband told her that he want to marry another woman because our religion says that man can marry maximum four women. His wife Fatima can’t prevent him so she kept silence all the time and her heart full of envy from her husband and the woman who will be his second wife. Her husband decided to do a small wedding party in the tent.

On the day of his wedding, Fatima wanted to destroy her husband wedding party. In the middle of the wedding, she set the tent on fire by using gasoline gallons. At the end, her husband and his new wife also some other guests died because what she had done. The police came and took her to the jail because it’s a murder case. So that, Fatima destroyed her life and her husband and others life because of her envy. So I suggest that people should take the life in easy way. They shouldn’t feel envy about others because the result will harm and destroy them and others. I advise people to try to delete the envy from their hearts and to accept the reality of their life. People who feel envy from others they must know that everything in this world happens for a reason and they can’t ignore their destiny and they have to accept it.

Works Cited
Christie, Agatha. Death on the Nile. Ed. Nancy Taylor. Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited, 2008. Print. Clarke, Anthony. “Death on the Nile.” DVD.net.au. DVD.net.au, n.d. Web. 24 July 2011. Death on the Nile. Dir. John Guillermin. Perf. Peter Ustinov, Lois Chiles, Mia Farrow, Simon MacCorkindale, David Niven. 1978. DVD. Anchor Bay Entertainment, 2002. “Death on the Nile.” The Stop Button. The Stop Button, 23 Feb. 2011. Web. 24 July 2011.