While reading the book Portrait of Jennie, having previously seen the movie, I was struck by two things. The first one was Eben’s behavior while painting Jennie’s portrait, which differed radically in the book and the movie. The second was the almost-romance (or at least sexual tension) between Spinney and Eben. In the scene(s) depicting Jennie’s portrait being painted, the Adams of the book was much more brusque and impatient to the point of insensitivity (case in point: he rationalizes making her cry because it makes the portrait turn out better) than the Adams of the film. In fact, what was one of my favorite scenes in the film turned out to be one of my least favorite scenes in the book, and the scene that cemented my dislike of Book Eben. For Movie Eben, on the other hand, the scene of painting Jennie was not so much a purely […]
Original post by anniek