Human Desire, directed by Fritz Lang, is an adaptation of both the 1890 novel by Mile Zola and Jean Renoir's La Bete Humaine. Though this does have a very similar plot, and there are times you feel nostalgic, there is still some differences that separates it from La Bete Humaine. One of the biggest differences is how the characters are portrayed and how you don't really feel bad for them in the end. Lets first take a look at the three main characters and see how they compare and differ from the characters in La Bete Humaine. Jeff Warren: Jeff is a Korean War veteran, who is returning to his railroad job, when he meets Vicki Buckley. They end up falling in love with each other, similar to Lantier and Severine. The difference being that Jeff doesn't have any mental conditions and therefore isn't the one that ends up killing Vicki. Another reason for this change in the ending is because, "Harry Cohn hated the pessimistic worldview of the Zola novel and the downbeat ending of Renoir's version." Jeff is a much kinder person and the audience ends up not really feeling much of anything for him, which is where many people say the film suffered. Besides that, we also see that Jeff ends up breaking up with vicki in the end as well, because he realizes that she was manipulating him. The video down below shows a part of this scene. Vicki Buckley: Vicki Buckley is the wife of an alcoholic wife beater, Carl, who ends up killing John Owens after he finds out about the affair. Vicki is very similar to Severine in her manipulative ways. They both have an affair with someone and play an important part in the murder of that person. Vicki is sneaky and plays her role, in my opinion, much better than Severine. After she meets Jeff, they fall in love and towards the end she tries to make him kill her husband. "She rationalized Jeff, a former Korean War veteran, has already killed plenty of men so what's one more, especially for a seductive beauty like her." This temptation and manipulation is shown in the video down below. Carl Buckley: Carl is the final main character of this film, but he is not any less important. Just like Roubaud, he is a jealous and aggressive man that doesn't let other men near his wife and beats her when he is angry. In the opening, we first see him as a railroad supervisor that ends up getting fired. From there he asks his wife to go see Owen and try to make him get his job back. After this is done, Carl finds out something happened between Vicki and Owen and decides to kill him. From there the character progresses the same way that Roubaud does. He starts to drink and wanders around the train yard. The major difference comes in the end, where Carl ends up being the one to kill Vicki. This was an unexpected turn of events and showed that Carl didn't love his wife as much as Roubaud did. One thing we can see from these characters is that they don't have that mixed feeling from the audience. In La Bete Humaine, the audience had a hard time being mad or hating a certain character because they all acted like a normal human with emotions would. While in this film, Carl is shown as a bad guy, Vicki is the victim, and Jeff is the good guy. This lack of emotions towards each character makes the film seem to fall short. John Greco wrote in his article, "In Renoir's film, there are no likable people unlike Lang's remake". Greco makes a good point about the characters and as I already mentioned, they are easier for the audience to place an emotion on. Another big thing I want to talk about is the film's story being similar to La Bete Humaine. For the first half of the film, the scenes and characters are very similar to the ones from La Bete Humaine. This makes the film seem unoriginal and already used up, which might also be why it didn't do as good as La Bete Humaine did. Right off the bat it seemed like I was re watching La Bete Humaine, just with American actors. The opening starts off with a train scene just like in La Bete Humaine. This can be seen in the videos down below. From there the same plot carries out, a man is killed and the married couple are responsible. The woman ends up falling in love with someone else and isn't allowed to escape because there is something holding her to her husband. The wife and new man want to get married and run away and end up trying to kill the husband. Both men can't do it and the wife ends up getting mad at them. From this point on the two films do separate and go different directions. In La Bete Humaine, Lantier comes back to Severine and tells her that he will kill Roubaud this time. When it looks like Roubaud is about to enter the room, Lantier's mental conditions come back and he ends up killing Severine. Then he goes to work the next day and after a while, decides to jump off the train and commit suicide. Now in Human Desire, Jeff goes back to where Vicki is waiting and tells her that he couldn't kill Carl. When she gets mad at him, he steps up and tells her it is over. He then proceeds to carry on with his life and goes back to work. Meanwhile Vicki boards the train and is confronted by her husband one last time. Here we see her finally snap at Carl and admit that she loved Jeff. Carl gets angry and ends up killing her on the train. As we see, the last thirty minutes or so are more different than the rest of the film put together. While watching this film, I became so prepared with what was going to happen next, because of its similarity, that the ending surprised me.
One last thing that I wanted to look at, was the use of the trains in this film. As the videos above show, both films start off with a train scene. While the train isn't as important in this film, it still does have its moments. The biggest being the two murders on the train. "The loud noise of the train makes two murders go unnoticed, and at one point leaves Jeff alone with his thoughts of the affair, unable to speak to anyone during his daily route." We see that the conflict between Carl and Owen wouldn't have started if Carl didn't work as a railroad supervisor and hadn't gotten fired. So, in a sense, the train is the monster that causes all the pain and hatred. It helps cover up the murders and jump starts the plot. One big thing is that the train seems to be everywhere. There are many times where all the audience hears is the train passing by a window and that is enough to remind them of it. It is almost like a monster that doesn't want to get directly involved, but instead is just setting itself up. Overall, Human Desire is an adaptation of La Bete Humaine, and follows the plot very closely until the end. Though the characters are not as fleshed out and human, they do still have an impact on the film. The same can be said about the trains. Though they do still make a presence, it isn't as fleshed out and talked about in this film. In the end, it comes down to preference and seeing which film you like more.
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