Review of East of Eden (1955) by Victoria P — 18 Sep 2013

The 1955 film adaptation of "East of Eden", directed by Elia Kazan, takes on the daunting task of retelling the rich, emotional storyline put down by John Steinbeck.

Unfortunately so, watching the said movie after reading the book was severely disappointing. I couldn't get the full experiance in the film as I did in the book, but I will say that the acting for Abra was my favorite. The opening seemed too adrupt for there to be any detail, and I felt lost throughout the movie even having known the previous plot. Leaving out such a crucial character like Lee seemed like a major setback as well, and removed "Timshel" from ever happening at the ending, which was a major factor into the ending of the novel. The brief and few apperances of Cathy was dissapointing as well, but her actor did well in making up for such a short screen time. Also, the cinimatography was quite stunning, but I'm not too big of a fan on the "burn't cheese pizza" lettering they used for opening and closing credits. I'm sure Kazan tried his best to create a realistic interpretation of the book, and I know that you shouldn't ever compare a book to a movie adaptation. But I feel that East of Eden can be successfully shown with the right about of timing, plot progession, and character development.