The Depreciation of the Horror of The Handmaid’s Tale

680 Words2 Pages

1. Who wrote the novel and who directed the film?
The author of The Handmaid’s Tale is Margaret Atwood. She was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on November 18, 1939. She is a prominent poet, novelist, essayist, critic and environmental activist. She received her bachelor’s degree from Victoria College in Toronto, and her master’s from Radcliffe. Atwood also started, but never finished, her doctorial degree from Harvard University. She has one child, a daughter named Eleanor Jess Atwood Gibson, with fellow Canadian writer, Graeme Gibson. Atwood and Gibson are co-founders of the Writer’s Trust of Canada. Started on March 3, 1976, the Writer’s Trust is a charitable organization that gives financial assistance to struggling Canadian writers. Atwood is not only a noted novelist, but a respected poet. She has published 15 books of poetry. Margaret Atwood is famous for her science fiction novel, The Handmaid’s Tale; however Atwood describes her novels as “speculative fiction” since she writes them as plausible situations that “could really happen.” In 1987 The Handmaid’s Tale received the first Arthur C. Clark award for best science fiction of the year in the UK.
A man by the name of Volker Schlöndorff directed the 1990 film version of The Handmaid’s Tale. Born in Wiesbaden, Germany on March 31, 1939, Schlöndorff has directed more than 40 films. He graduated from College de Sorbonne and the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques in France. His first directing job was as an assistant on Zazie in the Metro, but his debut movie was Young Törless. Schlöndorff was an extremely influential figure of New German Cinema and Young Törless is considered one of the first and most important films of the movement. Schlöndorff has also won an...

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...nding, once contemplated, is more depressing than the ambiguous ending to the novel. At least the Historical Notes section states that eventually the extremist mentality of the Republic of Gilead ends. Multiple pieces of a novel have to be cut so that a movie is not too long or overtly detailed. However, in Schlöndorff’s The Handmaid’s Tale it is not the details that are omitted, but the details that are added that are upsetting. The changes made to the film were superfluous. They did not add any meaning to the overarching message of the movie. In fact they go so far as to undermine the horror of Atwood’s description of a dystopian future.

Works Cited
“Margaret Atwood.” (2014) Wikipedia. Web. 17 Mar 2014.
“Volker Schlöndorff.” IMDb.com. Inc. Web. 16 Mar 2014.

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