The film "Death on the Nile" was produced in 1978 and adapted from Agatha Christie's masterpiece of the novel of the same name. This film is quite contemporary and exotic. It won the 51st Oscar for Best Fashion Design Award and the 36th American Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film Nomination. As a classic work of detective reasoning, the narrative of multiple clues and characters is complicated but well organized. The work tells a serial murder case caused by "love" and "money". The director made "addition and subtraction" on the work, analyzed the possibility of killing all characters, and restored every clue of detective Poirot's reasoning by means of multi-angle and multi-sided shooting.
In my opinion, to some extent, the soul of the film is given by the writers. They want to try to express a novel with tens of thousands of words in two hours, which is not only faithful to the original work, but also harmful to the picture technology. It is hard to imagine. Taking Death on the Nile as an example, compared with Agatha's mother-in-law's novel, the film reduces the appearance of characters and their corresponding relationships. For example, Guido Ricchetti, Tim Allerton, Cornelia Schooler and other characters in the original book did not appear in the film, and the pearl necklace lost after Linnet's death in the original book was also an important clue, which was diluted in the film. In the original book, There are not so many people who hate Rinnet, and in the movie, the whole ship hates Rinnet ...
At the same time, the film has added, which adds to the portrayal of characters and emotional clues compared with novels: All the people on board are suspected of killing Rinnet, and she may be killed by someone whose reputation has been destroyed by her. Or someone whose family was bankrupt by her father. Or someone who wants to steal. Or someone who is dissatisfied with others' inheritance of a large amount of inheritance. Or someone who tried his best to save her mother from bankruptcy. Or a entrusted person who is afraid of exposing his cheating behavior. Or someone who doesn't know who the passengers are ... The final murderer is a pair of lovers who have nothing but are willing to pay any price for love. The work highlights this respectable love and criticizes their money worship.
Ironically, one of them is her husband, while the other is her best friend. The creative use of "addition and subtraction" in the works intentionally caused confusion in the audience's reception of information, caused suspense, made the narrative of the story change from slow to fast, from steady to tense, and pushed the plot to a climax.
Next, let's look at the artistic treatment of the works. The film "Death on the Nile" is reminiscent of the mysterious pyramids, sphinxes and mummies in ancient Egypt, which further fits the suspense and horror theme of the film. Secondly, the color tone, composition and picture sense of the work give people a beautiful feeling, making a panoramic promo of the scenery along the Nile River, especially the costumes of the characters, which are completely faithful to their respective characters and status. All the characters are typical representatives of all classes and occupations in the society at that time, and the work won the 51st Oscar for Best Fashion Design Award. Finally, I want to mention some classic dialogues in the film. Humor and wit have laid the foundation for the development of the film plot. What impressed me the most is the dialogue between "the old lady and the maid Bowers", one before the trip, one on the boat to emphasize the character of both sides, and the last time to leave clues for the crime tool "shawl". Every time, the dialogue design with a few sentences makes people laugh and think again.
Finally, I'll talk about the deficiencies in movies in my personal impression. Personally, I think the novel may be too powerful to leave much creative space for the director. The whole work is slightly dull, and the mystery is not enough. It is just a pure narrative, leaving no personal style of the director. In addition, the film pays attention to the details, but seems to ignore the grasp of the overall tone. The weight levels between characters are similar, and the hierarchy is not obvious enough.
I have seen Death on the Nile more than three times. Even though it is flawed, it can be regarded as a "milestone" in the history of detective reasoning movies. It has strong logical reasoning and organization, and the cases are interlocking. By reappearing the scene of the murder scene, the truth is revealed bit by bit, which always attracts the audience to find the real murderer. It restored the real living conditions of people from all walks of life at that time, exposed the weakness of human greed and MoMo's selfishness and various social contradictions, expressed the desire to pursue freedom and equality, and triggered the audience's thinking on human nature, which was of enlightenment significance.
All picture collected