Uncle Tom's Cabin is my most favourite novel ever. It is reasonable that I've been at quest to find a film version that can do it some justice.
Unfortunately, I was thoroughly disappointed with this movie. While it may retain some semblence of the outer shell of the story along with a few character names, the vital core of the story is entirely changed. I would challenge any film company to depict this story faithfully.
It must also be pointed out that while the characters are in themselves ficticious, most of the events in the book actually happened.
The actual story is so magnificent that I shall not write any major spoilers here, albeit one or two necessary to discuss. The real ending however, of which the movie totally replaced, must remain a closely-guarded secret, reserved only for those who brave the book.
The original story was intended to argue Christian values against the cruel and inhuman system of slavery at the time. It is therefore intensely fundamental in its Christian basis.
Tom is a committed and devoted Christian, unswervable in his absolute faith despite intense oppression. He has a well-worn Bible that he reads at any opportunity, and regularly proclaims the Gospel with almost everyone he interacts. Evangeline, who is only five years old in the book, is likewise if not more so. There was no event anywhere in the book of Tom encouraging others by singing. Rather, it is always by evangelism and prayer. (That revolting substitution was an unforgivable degradation to his character.) And it is little Eva who is able to spiritually penetrate the stonehearted and belligerent child-slave Topsy with the meaning of divine love, that chapter in the book being one of the most remarkable of all.
This movie deletes the Christian themes entirely. The one scene which makes a vague mention of it is not found anywhere in the book. (Spoiler) In fact, the movie wrongly shows Tom being injured in a wagon accident, when in the book he was physically beaten to death by Legree for withholding intelligence on Cassy's whereabouts, for he would "not betray the innocent." The martyrdom in the story is tremendous and very tragically discarded in this movie. And Cassy's real hiding place was far more ingenious and exciting than the way it was shown in this cowardly film.
The story really follows two paths: Tom who is sold south because of his master's debt and Eliza who makes a desperate break for freedom to protect her child whom she learnt had been sold as well. Eliza's infamous river crossing, (which is historically true), was terribly underplayed in this movie. In the book, she had taken refuge at a small inn by the Ohio River in Kentucky, looking for a way to cross. When several slave catchers bore down on her location, she took up her five year old child, scrambled down the riverbank and made a desperate flying leap over about ten feet of turbulent current onto an ice floe, which pitched wildly under her weight. Upon reaching the Ohio side, a neighbour she knew helped her up the bank and led her to some abolishionists with the Underground Railroad. Then with the assistance of Quakers was reunited with her fugitive husband enroute to Upper Canada. This movie very wrongly shows Eliza travelling into the deep south to be hidden by Cassy. This is strongly contradictory to the story and doesn't even make sense.
The one positive comment I can make is that it appears as though some effort was put into the sets and costumes. It is only tragic and wasteful that the story was not better preserved.
So in summary, this movie makes a weak attempt to tell a grossly modified version of the story, while it cowers away from its core themes and real exulting climax.
(I welcome feedback from any fans of the book who want to discuss the story! I am rather passionate about it.)
Unfortunately, I was thoroughly disappointed with this movie. While it may retain some semblence of the outer shell of the story along with a few character names, the vital core of the story is entirely changed. I would challenge any film company to depict this story faithfully.
It must also be pointed out that while the characters are in themselves ficticious, most of the events in the book actually happened.
The actual story is so magnificent that I shall not write any major spoilers here, albeit one or two necessary to discuss. The real ending however, of which the movie totally replaced, must remain a closely-guarded secret, reserved only for those who brave the book.
The original story was intended to argue Christian values against the cruel and inhuman system of slavery at the time. It is therefore intensely fundamental in its Christian basis.
Tom is a committed and devoted Christian, unswervable in his absolute faith despite intense oppression. He has a well-worn Bible that he reads at any opportunity, and regularly proclaims the Gospel with almost everyone he interacts. Evangeline, who is only five years old in the book, is likewise if not more so. There was no event anywhere in the book of Tom encouraging others by singing. Rather, it is always by evangelism and prayer. (That revolting substitution was an unforgivable degradation to his character.) And it is little Eva who is able to spiritually penetrate the stonehearted and belligerent child-slave Topsy with the meaning of divine love, that chapter in the book being one of the most remarkable of all.
This movie deletes the Christian themes entirely. The one scene which makes a vague mention of it is not found anywhere in the book. (Spoiler) In fact, the movie wrongly shows Tom being injured in a wagon accident, when in the book he was physically beaten to death by Legree for withholding intelligence on Cassy's whereabouts, for he would "not betray the innocent." The martyrdom in the story is tremendous and very tragically discarded in this movie. And Cassy's real hiding place was far more ingenious and exciting than the way it was shown in this cowardly film.
The story really follows two paths: Tom who is sold south because of his master's debt and Eliza who makes a desperate break for freedom to protect her child whom she learnt had been sold as well. Eliza's infamous river crossing, (which is historically true), was terribly underplayed in this movie. In the book, she had taken refuge at a small inn by the Ohio River in Kentucky, looking for a way to cross. When several slave catchers bore down on her location, she took up her five year old child, scrambled down the riverbank and made a desperate flying leap over about ten feet of turbulent current onto an ice floe, which pitched wildly under her weight. Upon reaching the Ohio side, a neighbour she knew helped her up the bank and led her to some abolishionists with the Underground Railroad. Then with the assistance of Quakers was reunited with her fugitive husband enroute to Upper Canada. This movie very wrongly shows Eliza travelling into the deep south to be hidden by Cassy. This is strongly contradictory to the story and doesn't even make sense.
The one positive comment I can make is that it appears as though some effort was put into the sets and costumes. It is only tragic and wasteful that the story was not better preserved.
So in summary, this movie makes a weak attempt to tell a grossly modified version of the story, while it cowers away from its core themes and real exulting climax.
(I welcome feedback from any fans of the book who want to discuss the story! I am rather passionate about it.)