Seed log and Chateau d'If
3 March 2025 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeIt has been warmer, and I sowed a batch of chilli, towel-tomato and Roma tomato seeds. (Although there was ice on the top of the water this morning, so night-time temperatures are still plummeting!)
As a compromise to embarking upon Twenty Years After, I tried watching the Soviet "Count of Monte Cristo", The Prisoner of the Chateau d'If, which gets mentioned in a similar vein and apparently features Boyarsky as Fernand (I haven't seen any sign of him so far).
And... frankly, if I hadn't already been familiar with the plot I would not have had even the faintest idea what was going on -- the film opens with a scene at the opera which turns into what turned out to be a flashback sequence -- and even with my knowledge of the book and characters I was guessing wildly. I could barely pick out a single word of the unsubtitled dialogue, never mind one word in five :-(
I suspect that the vocabulary and construction of the text for this one was a lot more sophisticated than for something along the lines of "The Treasure of Cardinal Mazarin", while my 'listening age' is still stuck at somewhere around the level of "Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds" :-(
Edit: in fact Boyarsky/Fernand turned up almost immediately afterwards ;-)
Interesting to see him brooding and hostile instead of light-hearted and quick-witted, but still with the same screen intensity... but apparently Fernand is the *brother* of Mercedes in this version(?), which must lead to some odd plot ramifications later on! (According to the cast list there is still a Madame de Morcerf and an Albert, so presumably he marries somebody else...)
As a compromise to embarking upon Twenty Years After, I tried watching the Soviet "Count of Monte Cristo", The Prisoner of the Chateau d'If, which gets mentioned in a similar vein and apparently features Boyarsky as Fernand (I haven't seen any sign of him so far).
And... frankly, if I hadn't already been familiar with the plot I would not have had even the faintest idea what was going on -- the film opens with a scene at the opera which turns into what turned out to be a flashback sequence -- and even with my knowledge of the book and characters I was guessing wildly. I could barely pick out a single word of the unsubtitled dialogue, never mind one word in five :-(
I suspect that the vocabulary and construction of the text for this one was a lot more sophisticated than for something along the lines of "The Treasure of Cardinal Mazarin", while my 'listening age' is still stuck at somewhere around the level of "Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds" :-(
Edit: in fact Boyarsky/Fernand turned up almost immediately afterwards ;-)
Interesting to see him brooding and hostile instead of light-hearted and quick-witted, but still with the same screen intensity... but apparently Fernand is the *brother* of Mercedes in this version(?), which must lead to some odd plot ramifications later on! (According to the cast list there is still a Madame de Morcerf and an Albert, so presumably he marries somebody else...)