CineTrek 4 - 39 Steps

As I was sitting in the theater waiting for the 39 Steps play to start, I was not really excited because I have never enjoyed watching plays.  When I found out that only four people put on the play, I didn’t expect it to be entertaining.  After watching the play I surprisingly really enjoyed it.  I couldn’t believe that four people could put on such a funny and entertaining show.  When I sat down to do my blog posting, I went on my computer to watch the movie 39 Steps.  As I am watching the movie, I instantly notice how different the film is from the play.

After watching both the movie and the play I have realized that they both have the same story line, but the set tones are very different.  When I was watching the movie I was very bored and was falling asleep.  The tone set in the movie was very dull, dry and was not entertaining.  However, the tone set in the play was very comical, sexual and very entertaining.  To make the play a success, the actors had to add comedy to the story line in order to keep the interest of the audience.   Also, the girl who played Annabel in the play had to have a more sexy side to her in order to keep the audience interested.  In the movie I noticed that Annabel did not have a sexy side at all.  The movie is in black and white and came out in the 1930s.  The audience of the movie is obviously very different then the audience of the play.  In the 1930s people enjoyed watching all films and going to the see a film because it was fairly new in that time period.  The audience of the play is the modern day people and the type of entertainment most people today like is comedy and sex.   This is true because the most successful modern day movies are comedies that have many references to sex.   I know that I would have not liked the play if it was exactly like the film.  Also, by transforming the play to only have four actors, also keeps the audience on their toes.  This gives the actors a chance to make the audience laugh with their very quick costume changes and the different voices the actors have for each character they play.  The modern day audience also likes it when the actors intentionally mess up.  This makes the audience feel more relaxed.     

In Ways of Seeing Berger states in his first chapter “the relation between what we see and what we know is never settled”.  What Berger means is that everything we see never stays the same.  Turning this film into a live play does not mean that it will be exactly the same, even though we know it is the same story line.  As time goes on the audience changes, which means that what the audience sees needs to be adjusted to keep the story entertaining.