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Last year I listened to an audio book of A Farewell to Arms and absolutely loved it. I always forget about how enjoyable I find Hemingway until I'm actually reading his work. This work seems to be popular for big screen adaptions. I just happened to see that the 1932 movie was going to be on tv and decided to give it a go and see how well it adapted to the big screen. This version stars Gary Cooper as the lieutenant who serves in the Italian army in WWI as an ambulance driver. Helen Hayes co-stars as the nurse with whom he falls in love.

Reading books by listening to them is interesting because one is inevitably influenced by the reader. A man called Alexander Adams narrated my audio book, and his crisp and almost stoic reading of the story gave a definite mental climate to my experience of it. The contrast between Adams' take and director Frank Borzage's is strong. Whereas I read Catherine Barkley's character to wear a strong front despite her own insecurities, in the movie she is much more quick to fall in love and swoon over her relationship. The character of the Italian major, Rinaldi, is also quite different than I expected when played more strongly by Adolphe Menjou (interesting casting choice).

But the differences make complete sense when taken in the context of the time period when it was released. Movies were a lot more fanciful in those days, and actually, that's some of why I ended up liking this movie a lot. I love that, in the early days of the movies, filmmakers didn't know any boundaries and felt free to get creative with their work. There are a lot of creative aspects to this movie. For a story about a man who gets a girl pregnant before they're married, and possibly against her will, the approach to the subject matter is smart and not too blatant while not being completely sugar coated. There are also many really creative shots. Just last year, people were praising The Diving Bell and the Butterfly for the point-of-view camera approach. While that device was used for about half of that movie, it can also be seen in this one for a scene. There's a cool time progression sequence showing the lieutenant's progress in the war as well. I enjoyed interactiveness of the camera in the storytelling process a lot.

I really enjoyed this take on the story, and now I'm interested in watching some other adaptations of it. From the acting to the sets to the camera work, it was fresh, timely, and moving. It might not have been what Hemingway might have imagined for his work, and I might have tweaked the plot a little bit less, but I was glad to have come across it.