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Girl with a Pearl Earring
stars Scarlett Johannson (Griet) and Colin Firth (Vermeer)
My verdict:I love the film. It is like and yet not like the book, rather in the way sisters resemble each other yet also have distinctive personalities. Of course there have been changes made – primarily trimming away some subplots and combining others. I had thought that the book was short and spare, but the film has shown me that it could have been even shorter! The cuts may surprise readers but I don’t think it will be upsetting. The important scenes are intact, and some subtle reshuffling of scene order has made the story line even stronger.
As you would expect of a film about Vermeer, it is ravishing to look at – each scene beautifully lit and composed, almost like a succession of would-be Vermeer paintings, with some Rembrandts and de Hoochs thrown in for fun. Colin Firth is excellent as Vermeer, managing to retain the painter’s mystery even as we get to know him. But the film belongs to Scarlett Johannson, who is only 18 and has maybe 60 words of dialogue, yet packs so much into her luminous face that I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
After seeing the film I immediately wanted to see it again. That is always a good sign.
BackgroundI sold the option on the film rights (which gives a film company permission to develop an idea with a view to shooting it) to Archer Street films in November 1999, three months after Girl with a Pearl Earring was published in the UK, two months before it was published in the US, and long before it was a success. At the time of negotiating, none of us thought the book would do so well. I said yes to Archer Street because it is a small British production company whose producers demonstrated integrity (a rare enough quality in the film industry) and a desire to remain faithful to what they called the “emotional truth” of the book. I wanted to avoid “Hollywoodizing” the film – stuffing it full of inappropriate famous actors, changing the ending, using intrusive music, sexing up scenes. In that sense it was probably just as well that I sold the rights before the book did so well. I like to think that if Hollywood had come around waving money at me I would have taken the moral high ground and refused it. But hey, we all have our price!
When I did the deal I chose not to have any part in the making of the film, and so did not work on the screenplay. It was the most sensible decision I could have made. I have never written screenplays and don’t intend to be a scriptwriter. I write novels on my own, with just my agents and editors to advise at the very end. Scriptwriters work collaboratively from the start and go through many drafts. In the end their work has many other functions besides telling a story well – it has to attract actors, prove to financiers that it can be a box-office success, and provide a blueprint for production design, costumes, etc. I don’t know how to do all those things. Besides, I’m not necessarily the best judge of my own work. I’m too close to Girl with a Pearl Earring to see which characters can be cut, which scenes expanded, which relationships emphasized, which plot lines scrapped.
Luckily the book landed in the very skilled hands of Olivia Hetreed, who had written for British television but not a full-length feature film. We met briefly a few times, and she had a few questions. But mostly she just got on with it. When she sent me a draft screenplay several months later, it was more out of politeness than wanting advice or criticism. Just as well – it took me a long time to work up the courage to read it all the way through. By the time I did she had probably done two more drafts. (They work fast, these screenwriters!)
It was a strange experience reading someone else’s version of my story. I felt a little sick as I read it, as if from the dizziness of someone else climbing inside my head and looking out through my eyes. Sometimes I was sorry when some scene or character was gone, but mostly I was impressed by how well Olivia had managed to translate a first-person book into a film without a voiceover. (I don’t much like voiceovers – usually they are a sloppy, unimaginative way of presenting someone’s point of view.) I was even envious of some of the visual details Olivia had invented, especially a scene in which Griet plays with the reflection of the bowl she’s polishing and the Vermeer girls chase the spot of light around the courtyard. “Why didn’t I think of that?”I kept thinking as I read.
But a screenplay is not a film. A lot happens in the editing; a lot gets left on the cutting-room floor. Just as I’d had to give up my Girl to Olivia, she had to give up hers to the director, Peter Webber. The final product is his vision more than anyone else’s. We were lucky to have had his eyes.
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I was born in 1962 and grew up in Washington, DC. I have a BA in English from Oberlin College, Ohio, and an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. I have lived in London for over 20 years, and am married, with one son. I was a reference book editor for several years before turning to writing full-time. My second novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring, won the Barnes and Noble Discover Award. It has sold almost 4 million copies worldwide and was made into a film starring Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson.
SOME OF MY FAVOURITE... Love Poems
"A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" John Donne
"A Birthday" Christina Rossetti
"Since feeling is first" ee cummings
"Anticipation of Love" Jorge Luis Borges
"The Hard Hours" Anthony Hecht
Songs to Dance to
Super Freak Rick James
Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' Michael Jackson
Celebration Kool & the Gang
Making Flippy Floppy Talking Heads
I Wish Stevie Wonder
