Memoirs Of a Geisha - a review

Last night I watched the movie Memoirs Of A Geisha for the first time. I have read the book at least three times. Well that's a lie, it's been three times exactly. I love the book. Part of what I love about it is there's so much description I feel like I have already seen the story in my head. The movie was good, it was very beautiful to see the kimono and makeup and jewelery and scenery (especially the cherry blossom scene) but I felt like the movie really lacked the description that was so wonderful in the book. I realize they can't include the entire story, so I was ready for omissions, but some things were very disappointing. First of all, I felt like if I hadn't read the book, I would not have gotten the subtle references the movie made that were trying to do justice to the story. For example, everyone's name. It's not till the very end of the movie that you learn the more kindly old lady at the okiya is called Auntie. Also they show a couple shots of the young girls practicing their musical instruments, and in one scene she's freezing her fingers in ice before she plays, but they don't say why: because nerves while performing makes the fingers numb, so icing them lets her practice playing well with numb hands. There are lots of other examples of explanations missing from what the viewer sees during the movie. Like I said, if you haven't read the book, you probably don't get the full value of the story. Another detail is that Nobu only has one arm in the book, but I guess they couldn't find any one-armed Asian actors, so they glossed over it. In the book, Mother is old and it's explained that she's an ex-geisha with horribly disfigured skin due to the white makeup that was worn back then. She dies in a fire started by her heater. In the movie she's younger than Auntie and doesn't die, and the fire is caused by a fight between Sayuri and Hatsumomo who then becomes so enraged she throws an oil lamp on the flames. That ends up being the reason she's thrown out of the okiya, but in the book she gets thrown out because she gets very jealous at a party and bites some guy in front of everyone, thereby disgracing herself.

The movie reminded me of Dune. I know that sounds funny, but I saw Dune a couple times before I read the book. Then I heard somewhere that they'd made the movie very closely following the story true, but it ended up being something like three hours too long, so they had to edit it down by more than half. The result is a choppy glossed over version of the fantastic story - something I didn't realize when I first saw it. After I read the book and saw the movie again, I realized what I had missed.

Both Dune and Memoirs Of A Geisha seem to me to be like a big pot of carrot tips. Kinda tasty, but if the entire carrot bodies had been used it would be a much better meal. Not that carrots alone make a great meal. Oh no I'm losing the image I had in my head of my simile. Never mind. Just know that if you read the book, the movie makes much more sense. Well, the parts that they don't change anyway.

Incidentally, apropro of nothing I learned the other day that Stephen Hawking is English. That was a surprise to me because he doesn't have an accent. HAHAHAHAAHAAAA!!!!

Incidentally again, I don't know why but I can't fix the formatting of the last three paragraphs. Please don't think less of me because of the poor presentation this post has :'o(