Love and Lehane, Final Chapter Save the Footnotes

I took some time out in Fresno to watch "Mystic River" again, and to ponder on the books...

In both books there are 95% or all white characters. In both movies they turn some pretty ironic characters to African-American actors. In "Mystic River" the African-American is a cop named Whitey Powers. Hmmm. In "Gone Baby Gone" Morgan Freeman is the special unit director Jack Doyle (a lot of African-American/Irishmen in Boston, are there?) and the character of Cheese is portrayed as being from Haiti, not Norway as he is in the book. The character of Cheese was named in the book for his yellow-y skin and hair. I don't know why he's named Cheese in the movie.

I do know why they change these characters, though--for the sake of time. Sometimes it creates confusion...Affleck assumed at one point that everyone had read the novel and went from calling a character Bressant (from Lehane's Broussard) to Remy, and called him Remy the rest of the movie. The references to Remy's wife and "child" in Texas are dropped, as are other subplots. But subplots were dropped from "Mystic River" as well.

Eastwood's movie is complex but clean work like Shakespeare, Affleck's is messier and more flailing. Both use the base story Lehane brings to the table and then both do the same thing that Lehane intends: solving a mystery plus a healthy dose of "Do you really want to know who did it?" They each have their own questions to ask. And they both ask them VERY WELL. At the end of both films you're stunned, shocked and dismayed at an inevitable outcome that you didn't see coming but knew would come.

Is it the material? The film critic for the Chronicle said at one point, "but how could Affleck go wrong, when he has this kind of material to work with?" And the theme that the material centers around is more complex than what I am about to write, but vaguely this: law in the hands of citizens, gone wrong.

I could take off now and read all of Lehane's works. I think, however, it's better to wait for the movies and balance the two forms of art. I have to believe, in a Lehane world, that the material is just that gone. He can call it as clear and messy as he wants; he can always see more than just a mystery. He can also see the worst possible solution, for that's the one we all live with.