University of Virginia Library

Means More

Most every major American
dramatist has one such "intensely
personal" work which means more
than all the others. It is the work,
usually autobiographical or
semi-autobiographical, which he
writes in his head a thousand times
before he puts anything on paper.
It is the work which he is often
afraid to write for a number of
reasons: fear of its not being as
perfect as he wants it to be, fear of
the actual pain of writing it. It is a
work ripped out of his memory and
written more by his heart than his
mind. For O'Neill, it was "Long
Day's Journey Into Night." For
Miller, it was "After the Fall." For
Williams, "The Glass Menagerie."
This is Robert Anderson's.

And Mr. Anderson, in writing
his screenplay, has proven that he is
a good enough writer not to fall,
into the trap many authors of
"intensely personal" works do:
becoming so emotionally involved
that all objectivity is lost. Mr.
Anderson recognized the
weaknesses of his play and has
skillfully avoided most of them in
his film adaptation.

For instance, he begins to build
up the conflict between the father
and son earlier in the film, whereas
in the play this didn't come into
full perspective until the second
act. He has added two significant
characters, the son's mistress and
fianc?e, who serve primarily as
"sounding boards" for the son,
through whose eyes we view the
story. We need to know the basis
for the son's hatred and see his
frustration, and on stage his direct
addresses to the audience were not
enough.