Differences Between The Film and Real Life Events
This film quotes the start of the book, "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills", and Denys recites, "He prayeth well that loveth well both man and bird and beast" from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which becomes the epitaph inscribed on Finch-Hatton's grave marker .
This film differs significantly from the book, leaving out the devastating locust swarm, some local shootings, and Karen's writings about the German army. The production also downplays the size of her 4,000 acres (16 km2) farm, with 800 Kikuyu workers and an 18-oxen wagon. Scenes show Karen as owning only one dog, but actually, she had two similar dogs named Dawn and Dusk.
The film also takes liberties with Karen's and Denys's romance. They met at a hunting club, not in the plains. Denys was away from Kenya for two years on military assignment in Egypt, which is not mentioned. Denys took up flying and began to lead safaris after he moved in with Karen. The film also ignores the fact that Karen was pregnant at least once with Denys's child, but she suffered from miscarriages. Furthermore, Denys was decidedly English, but this fact was downplayed by the hiring of the actor Robert Redford, an inarguably All-American actor who had previously worked with Pollack. When Redford accepted the contract to play Finch Hatton, he did so fully intending to play him as an Englishman. This conception was later nixed by the director Sydney Pollack, who thought it would be distracting for the audiences. In fact, Redford reportedly had to re-record some of his lines from early takes in the filming, in which he still spoke with a trace of English accent.
The title scenes of the film show the main railway, from Mombasa to Nairobi, as travelling through the Kenyan Rift Valley, on the steep back side of the actual Ngong Hills. However, the real railway track is located on the higher, opposite side of the Ngong Hills. The passenger car was actually a small combination office / sleeper that was originally used by supervisors during the building of the Uganda Railway and was the actual car from which a man was taken and killed by a marauding lion.
The film shows Karen reciting from To An Athlete Dying Young at Finch-Hatton's funeral but there is no mention of this in the book.
Read more about this topic: Out Of Africa (film)
Famous quotes containing the words differences between, differences, film, real, life and/or events:
“The extent to which a parent is able to see a child’s world through that child’s eyes depends very much on the parent’s ability to appreciate the differences between herself and her child and to respect those differences. Your own children need you to accept them for who they are, not who you would like them to be.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)
“When was it that the particles became
The whole man, that tempers and beliefs became
Temper and belief and that differences lost
Difference and were one? It had to be
In the presence of a solitude of the self....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“If you want to tell the untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you’ve got to find a language. Which goes for film as well as prose, for documentary as well as autobiography. Use the wrong language, and you’re dumb and blind.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1948)
“What might be taken for a precocious genius is the genius of childhood. When the child grows up, it disappears without a trace. It may happen that this boy will become a real painter some day, or even a great painter. But then he will have to begin everything again, from zero.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
““You are old, Father William,” the young man cried,
“And life must be hastening away;
You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death:
Now tell me the reason, I pray.”
“I am cheerful, young man,” Father William replied;
“Let the cause thy attention engage;
In the days of my youth I remembered my God,
And He hath not forgotten my age.””
—Robert Southey (1774–1843)
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)