Extract
[...] Colin, for example, appears candid and naive in the film, particularly during the meeting with Chloé when he asks her for her 'favorite corner of Paris'. In contrast, in the novel, he is rather egocentric or even aggressive. Compare the scene of discussion between Jesus Christ and Colin at the end of the book7. Other characters, such as Chick and Alise, can also appear less developed, as the film cannot afford the same level of depth as the novel, as we have stated above. [...]
[...] From this perspective, even if the main themes of Froth on the Daylight, such as love, illness and death, remain at the heart of both works, there are nevertheless differences in the way these themes are approached. This is particularly the case with regard to the ending of the work. The endings of the two works are tragic and leave both the viewer and the reader on a note of despair. However, the nuances that lead to this conclusion differ. [...]
[...] Indeed, the emphasis on aesthetics and visual originality can, for some viewers who are perfectly familiar with the work, divert the viewer's attention from the deeper themes of love, illness, and death that are treated with greater seriousness and depth in the novel. This depth and this soul of the novel that is missing from the adaptation finds its paroxysm with the music, as we mentioned earlier. The influence of jazz on Vian is known to all, he who was also a trumpeter. As composer and man of letters he made jazz music a ubiquitous component in the novel by evoking numerous times the great names of American jazz of the time such as Duke Ellington. [...]
[...] The author plays with the French language in a playful way, creating a surrealist universe filled with metaphors and neologisms. Gondry's film also tries to capture this spirit by translating some of these discoveries, such as those mentioned, but it cannot fully reproduce them in order not to lose its audience, which does not have the necessary references, particularly in the musical register, which we will return to later. The loss of creativity of the novel is indeed due to the visual nature of Gondry's cinema. [...]
[...] As we can see, The Foam of the Daisies, represents in an emblematic way the abandonment of the usual references of the novel and a strong will of rupture, of novelty, to the point of being disorienting for the readers of the time as well as today by a visual and linguistic richness proper to the universe of Boris Vian. Often qualified as an unadaptable work3, However, there are two film adaptations: one made by Charles Belmont in 1968 and the one made by Michel Gondry, released in 2013. It is with this last version, with Colin and Chloé played by the two French actors Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou, that we will carry out our present reflection. In this perspective, we will place ourselves in the footsteps of Jean Cléder (2004) on the subject of film adaptation. [...]
