Writing According to Steven H. Gale, in his book
Sharp Cut, "the final cut of ''The Handmaid's Tale'' is less a result of Pinter's script than any of his other films. He contributed only part of the screenplay: reportedly he 'abandoned writing the screenplay from exhaustion.' … Although he tried to have his name removed from the credits because he was so displeased with the movie (in 1994 he told me that this was due to the great divergences from his script that occur in the movie), … his name remains as screenwriter". Gale observes further that "while the film was being shot, director
Volker Schlöndorff", who had replaced the original director
Karel Reisz, "called Pinter and asked for some changes in the script"; however, "Pinter recall[ed] being very tired at the time, and he suggested that Schlöndorff contact Atwood about the rewrites. He essentially gave the director and author to accept whatever changes that she wanted to institute, for, as he reasoned, 'I didn't think an author would want to fuck up her own work.' … As it turned out, not only did Atwood make changes, but so did many others who were involved in the shoot". he adds: "Most notably ''The Handmaid's Tale
, which he considered so much altered that he has refused to allow the script to be published, and The Remains of the Day'', which he refused to allow his name to be attached to for the same reason …" (84n3).
Pinter's screenplay Christopher C. Hudgins discusses further details about why "Pinter elected not to publish three of his completed filmscripts, ''The Handmaid's Tale
, The Remains of the Day and Lolita''," all of which Hudgins considers "masterful filmscripts" of "demonstrable superiority to the shooting scripts that were eventually used to make the films"; fortunately ("We can thank our various lucky stars"), he says, "these Pinter filmscripts are now available not only in private collections but also in the
Pinter Archive at the British Library." In this essay, which he first presented as a paper at the 10th Europe Theatre Prize symposium, Pinter: Passion, Poetry, Politics, held in Turin, Italy, in March 2006, Hudgins "examin[es] all three unpublished filmscripts in conjunction with one another" and "provides several interesting insights about Pinter's adaptation process".
Richardson's views In a retrospective account written after Natasha Richardson's death, for
CanWest News Service, Jamie Portman cites Richardson's view of the difficulties involved with making Atwood's novel into a film script: Richardson recognized early on the difficulties in making a film out of a book which was "so much a one-woman interior monologue" and with the challenge of playing a woman unable to convey her feelings to the world about her, but who must make them evident to the audience watching the movie. ... She thought the passages of
voice-over narration in the original screenplay would solve the problem, but then Pinter changed his mind and Richardson felt she had been cast adrift. ... "Harold Pinter has something specific against voice-overs," she said angrily 19 years ago. "Speaking as a member of an audience, I've seen voice-over and narration work very well in films a number of times, and I think it would have been helpful had it been there for The Handmaid's Tale. After all it's HER story." Portman concludes that "In the end director Volker Schlöndorff sided with Richardson". Portman does not acknowledge Pinter's already-quoted account that he gave both Schlöndorff and Atwood to make whatever changes they wanted to his script because he was too "exhausted" from the experience to work further on it. In 1990, when she reportedly made her comments quoted by Portman, Richardson herself may not have known that. The novel does not include the murder of the Commander, and Kate's fate is left completely unresolved—the van waits in the driveway, "and so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light" ([Atwood, ''The Handmaid's Tale'' (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986)] 295). The escape to Canada and the reappearance of the child and Nick are Pinter's inventions for the movie version. As shot, there is a voice-over in which Kate explains (accompanied by light symphonic music that contrasts with that of the opening scene) that she is now safe in the mountains held by the rebels. Bolstered by occasional messages from Nick, she awaits the birth of her baby while she dreams about Jill, whom she feels she is going to find eventually. (Gale,
Sharp Cut 318)
Filming locations The scene where the hanging occurred was filmed in front of
Duke Chapel on the campus of
Duke University in
Durham, North Carolina. Several scenes were filmed at
Saint Mary's School in Raleigh, North Carolina. ('The Staircase' was used for this film and the Patterson house as a location) == Reception ==