I read J. M. Coetzee’s novel, Disgrace, over a wet weekend. This book won both the 1999 Booker Prize and the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature. It kept me turning the pages and held my interest from start to finish. The prose is no-nonsense and economical. Coetzee makes no attempt to show off by using words the reader does not understand. The novel is about South Africa soon after the end of apartheid. It is written from a white South African perspective. White colonial guilt is the central theme. The writing is excellent. The main characters are all well fleshed-out and believable. I have never been to South Africa, yet I had the feeling of having met people like Coetzee’s characters. The themes are conveyed with subtlety and precision. The novel is powerful.
The next day I watched the film. The film mostly succeeds in portraying the novel’s characters and conveying its themes, though with less subtlety and precision. The film is a more blunt instrument than the book.
The novel is written in the third person, present tense. This works well in that Coetzee does not over-explain events; he ordinarily lets the reader react and interpret them. The story is told from the point of view of the main character, David Lurie, a 52-year-old adjunct professor of communications at Cape Technical University. Both David Lurie and his daughter, Lucy, who farms a small rural holding in the Eastern Cape, exhibit the central theme of white colonial guilt in different and contrasting ways. Unsurprisingly, father and daughter are in conflict for much of the novel. They deal with their guilt in different ways.
David is a less sympathetic character. He exhibits entitlement in getting sex from younger coloured women, whether he pays for it or uses his position as a university professor to get it. At the same time, he resents his reduced state as a white South African in post-apartheid South Africa, and sees it as an injustice. He is in denial about his guilt, but accepts his position of disgrace.
Lucy, a lesbian and former hippy, chooses to live on her own in rural Eastern Cape without male protection. She knows that she is not safe in doing so, and does not care. She will engage with the local black community as best she can to ensure her own safety. Otherwise, she is content to allow fate to take its course. She is aware of the colonial debt she owes the black people and is fatalistic about it. They will collect their debt in their own way, and that will probably involve violence. She accepts this. David does not. He wants black criminals prosecuted and put in an institution.
The film mostly follows the book from start to finish. The pacing is slow, but not out of keeping with the pace of the novel. The screenplay includes many direct quotes from the novel and generally works well. The filmmakers seldom use dialogue to tell the story of the film. When such exposition does occur, it is unobtrusive. The cinematography is excellent. There are many well-crafted shots of South African scenery which makes the film look and feel authentic. The score is understated and creates a mood that befits the novel. The acting is at least good, and in some cases excellent.
John Malkovich plays the leading role of Professor David Lurie. His performance is good but not great. He does not master the South African accent. Unlike the other performances, including that of Jessica Haines, who is excellent as Lucy Lurie, while watching Malkovich, at times I felt I was watching an American actor play a South African character. This reduced the overall authenticity of the film.
Malkovich does capture the overarching jadedness of the character, some of David’s sense of entitlement, and some of his resentfulness; however, he misses his more subtle qualities, including his sense of fairness. In the novel, David observes, ‘Petrus and his wife are spending a lot of time with him, making him feel at home. Kind people, he thinks. Country people.’ Malkovich’s failure to portray the subtleties of David’s character in part can be attributed to shortcomings in the script. Among other things, the novel’s edgy dialogue is left out.
Both the Lucy Lurie and Bev Shaw characters are prettier in the film than depicted in the book. In the novel, Bev is described as a woman who has a chin ‘that comes straight out of her chest, like a pouter pigeon’s.’ David’s relationship with Bev Shaw comprises part of his downward spiral, part of his new reality in his state of disgrace. This is all but lost in the film — Bev is not ugly enough.
The book also portrays the black and coloured characters with more subtlety than the film. In the novel, Petrus is a scheming peasant, but he is also a complex human being who has kindness within him. In the film, Petrus’ scheming and peasant qualities are all too obvious, while his kindness is at best only hinted at. Similarly, Coetzee’s Mr Isaacs exhibits a subtle and nuanced response to David Lurie. He is more than just the reproachful father of David’s student, Melanie, as portrayed in the film. Among other things, Mr Isaacs has subtle Christian sensibilties.
The book has sharp edges. David, in conversing with Lucy, mocks the names of black people:
“Not Mncedisi? Not Nqabayakhe? Nothing unpronounceable, just Pollux?”
This pointed racial quip is omitted from the film. The novel is fundamentally about race. The film, however, does not contain any overtly racist dialogue. The end of the book is stark, bleak, and powerful. It does not uplift the reader or hint at redemption, for David Lurie, or any other character, white, black, or coloured. The end of the film is somewhat warm; it hints at reconciliation and redemption.
The Guardian reported Coetzee’s only comment on the film was director, ‘Steve Jacobs has succeeded beautifully in integrating the story into the grand landscape of South Africa.’ I read that as faint praise.
The book is sharp-edged, bleak, and powerful. The film is safe, timid, and entertaining. The film, probably for commercial reasons, removes the jagged, uncomfortable edges of Disgrace, the literary work, to make the narrative more palatable for a wider audience. Where Coetzee uses silence and economical prose to force the reader to ponder the heavy, unresolved friction of post-apartheid South Africa, the film relies on beautiful cinematography and a softened narrative arc to entertain viewers. By omitting David’s sharp racial quips and making the Lucy and Bev Shaw characters prettier, the filmmakers trade raw political and psychological truth for conventional drama.
The film’s final tilt toward redemption and reconciliation betrays the stark, unsparing power of the novel’s closing pages. Coetzee provides no easy comfort, no redemption, and no neat closure. If you want an entertaining, beautifully shot drama with capable performances, the movie is a respectable effort. If you want to experience the profound weight of the story’s themes, the book is a must-read.
Do you agree with the film’s rating, or did Malkovich’s accent pull you out of the experience entirely? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
