lunes, 12 de mayo de 2014

Murders in the Rue Morgue, film vs short story



This short story is considered as the first detective story which "changed the history of world literature" (Meyers 1992).The story starts with the voice of the narrator who explain the analysis of a game of chess, promising that this explanation is related with the story. After that, he introduces C. Auguste Dupin, who comes from Paris and comes to live together with the narrator in a nice house, where they only live during the morning since in the night they go outside searching for adventures.Dupin, after reading the newspaper, becomes interested on a murder of a mother and a daughter which have taken place in Rue Morgue, and Dupin, with the help of the narrator, collect information about the murder with the neighbors' declarations. He becomes more and more interested in the crime, and he decides visit the crime scene with his roommate after the imprision of a man who was suspicious of commiting the crime with no evidence against him.
Dupin concudes that the murder has been commited not only by a human, but by an animal such an Ourang-Outang with the assistance of a human. For that reason he puts an ad asking if anybody has lost this animal. A sailor responds to the ad and meets with Dupin. He says that he is the owner of the Ourang-Outang, and explains how the animal escaped from the house with a razor and went to the house where the crimes were commited. Dupin believes him and inform to the police about the declarations, closing the case.This story is a really rare story which makes the readers being in doubt during until the end of the story, guessing about who could commit the crime. At the end these questions are solved, however the end is difficult to believe making it a bit ambiguous. (themotionpictures.net "Poe vs. film: The Murders in the Rue Morgue", 2012)

This story was adapted on a film in 1932, Murders in the Rue Morgue. The setting is very similar to the one which appears in the story, however in the plot there are big changes although it was obvious inspired by Poe's story. For example, at the beggining of the film the chess explanation is substituted by a scene of two couples visiting a carnival. In the case of the figure of the narrator, in the film becomes a one more character, and he is not interested on helping Duping to solve the crime. And the crime is not commited by an animal, but the murder which Duping investigates consists on the death of women who are injected ape's blood by a doctor. The end of the film is also different, since Dupin instead of informing about the case to the police, he kills the gorilla. The final is not so clear as the one in Poe's story, but it is also a good and suspenful ending.It is very difficult to compare both works, since they are really different, but both are fantastic compositions.(imdb.com  "El doble asesinato en la calle Morgue")

Here you have the trailer of the film and the link to the full film.


For further information:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023249/
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/section5.rhtml

Reference list:
Tmp, Lindsey. "Poe vs. film: The Murders in the Rue Morgue". The Motion Pictures. Lindsey Tmp. June 11, 2012. Web 18 May 2014.  <http://themotionpictures.net/2012/06/11/poe-vs-film-the-murders-in-the-rue-morgue/> 


 

4 comentarios:

  1. My favorite moment is when the ape ir running over the roofs.

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  2. Yes, I think that is one of the most awesome scenes of the film.

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  3. I am absolutely agree.However, the plot is not well represented at all.

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  4. Well, you are right. But you must connsider that this is a film adaptation, and the director structures the film in order to pleasure the audience, and maybe the plot of the book would not be so atractive for viewers as the one which he created for the film.

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