Blog Response Post: The Hours

1. Analysis of the Book

Michael Cunningham’s 1998 novel The Hours not only sets a narrative where three women’s lives are uniquely affected by Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway, but also mirrors Woolf’s plot and style of writing. Woolf was a pioneer in telling stream-of-consciousness narratives, and Cunningham uses this in his novel, with the narrative written as if everything in the character’s mind is said, all at once. This means daily activities of the characters, such as Mrs. Dalloway or Clarissa Vaughn buying flowers, are paralleled with them thinking about the past, their school days. Cunningham arguably not only has a stream-of-consciousness narrative, but a stream-of-consciousness form, as each chapter is centered on one of the three different women, yet their actions, thoughts and feelings mimics each others in some way. Although Cunningham has called his novel somewhat of a “parlor trick,” it aims to recreate the way Woolf’s Dalloway “find[s] the profundity in the most outwardly ordinary experience” (Gussow).

2. Analysis of the Film 

Stephen Daldry’s 2002 The Hours deals with the representation of suicide in a surprisingly un-morbid way. The characters are incredibly picturesque, all in beautiful settings. Even the older Richard, played by Ed Harris is typified as the troubled New York poet, in a dilapidated, dirty flat in the middle of the city. For Woolf, Richard and Laura Brown, suicide is shown as something internal, something that will eventually happen, and something that is not so negative, compared to other depictions of suicide as a response to something wrong. This is highlighted by Philip Glass’s score. The piece below, played during beginning scene of Woolf’s suicide is slow and contemplative, “with Glass’s repetitive style analogously enhanc[ing] the cyclical rhythms of the films characters’ lives … [which] deepens the film’s grandeur and melancholy” (Schepper).

3. Analysis of the Adaptation

This film can be seen as an adaptation of an adaptation. Cunningham’s novel is obsessed with Mrs. Dalloway, and so the film is an adaptation of The Hours, and it must also represent Woolf’s novel. If Woolf was a modernist, Cunningham is a post modernist, as he makes the subject of his novel another novel (Hughes). The film also contains post modernist moments, although not as ostentatious as those found in Tristram Shandy or Adaptation. In the example below from the film, Virginia Woolf, played by Nicole Kidman, thinks up the first line of her novel out loud “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” The film then cuts to Mrs. Brown in the 1950’s, played by Julienne Moore, who, reading the book that the audience just saw Woolf beginning, reads the first line out loud on her bed. Right after, the film shows Clarissa, played by Meryl Streep say “I think I’ll buy the flowers myself,” to Sally who has forgotten them.

The postmodernism in the novel is shown to be amplified in the film, as the director does not have chapters to separate the three narratives – the film flits through the three time periods to show their paralleling story-lines.

Another parallel: Mrs. Brown’s dream of drowning before she plans to commit suicide is reminiscent of Woolf’s actual drowning in the river.

4. Online Research on the Film

• Amanda Rodriguez on “Bitch Flicks” questions the feminist hype for The Hours. Her argument is that the film portrays women as “bottomless pits,” that are doomed to never be happy or content. Link to article here. 
• James Rawson for The Guardian analyzes the fact that although more LGBT characters are represented in film, many of them die. Many successful, award-winning films that have LGBT main characters, such as The Hours, Milk, Brokeback Mountain, Black Swan, A Single Man, Philadelphia and Monster, kill off their characters. This is eerily reminiscent of Richard believing that the only reason he is receiving the award is because he is close to death. Link to article here.
• Roger Ebert, in his review of the film,  argues that the film is not about sexuality or suicide. Link to review here. 

Instead he believes  it is more about lives lead with love vs. lives lead without love. Ebert believes the film “creates an emotional vortex at the end of the film, in which we see that lives without love are devastated …  for the two in the movie who do not or cannot love, the price is devastating.” Virginia and Leonard Woolf both love each other, and it is only in a moment of clarity about her mental illness that she kills herself, in part to remove the burden of dealing with the illness off of him. Clarissa is able to love many in her life including Richard and her daughter, Laura.  In the beginning of the film, she questions her relationship with Sally. But by the end of the film, possibly due to Richard’s death and Mrs. Browns arrival, she seems to remove those doubts. However, Mrs. Brown inability to love, whether it is because of personality or societal constraints,  has left her hollow- her life without her family does not seem more or less satisfying then her life with her family (something that is an invention of the film, not a part of the novel). She does not demonstrate any real emotional love for anything, except for Mrs. Dalloway and perhaps Richard’s works. Furthermore, Richards life is directly affected by the lack of love he felt from his mother. He kill’s her character in his novel, and looks at an image of her before he commits suicide.

5. Critical Argument Paragraph

The Hours represents literature as a creation that takes incredible time and effort, where sometimes the sacrifices for that creation are questionable. The two authors – Richard and Woolf – have a great impact on their loved ones, and are aware of it. While we see causes of Richard’s work (his mother’s abandonment, his relationships and friends) and the outcomes (the characters often call it “difficult,” and his receiving the Carrouthers),  we do not see him writing anything.  The audience is offered this aspect of a writers life by Woolf’s character. The time and effort Woolf puts into Mrs. Dalloway is mirrored by the time and effort Clarissa and  Laura put into the party for Richard and Dan’s birthday party. In an interview, Stephen Daldry has said about Mrs. Dalloway “books change my life … this book changed Michael Cunningham’s life and changes Laura Brown’s life in the story” (Billington). It can be argued that this film proves that the sacrifices an author makes for their literature is valid, as Woolf’s novel stays alive in the world of the other two women.

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Works Cited

Primary Sources

Cunningham, Michael. The Hours. 1998. 

• Prologue: <http://michaelcunninghamwriter.com/books/the_hours/excerpt>.
• “Mrs. Dalloway”pgs. 9-27: <http://books.google.com/books?id=_CFvOd9bh44C&dq=michael+cunningham%27s+the>.

Secondary Sources

Billington, Michael. “‘Nothing is the hardest to do.'” The Guardian. 12 February 2003. Web. 13 June 2013. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/feb/12/oscars2003.oscars>.  

Ebert, Roger. “Reviews: The Hours.” RogerEbert.com. 27 December 2002. Web. 11 June 2013. <http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-hours-2002>.

Gussow, Mel. “A Writer Haunted by Virginia Woolf.” The New York Times. 20 April 1999. Web. 11 June 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/20/books/a-writer-haunted-by-virginia-woolf.html>.

Hughes, Mary Joe. “Micheal Cunningham’s The Hours and Postmodern Artistic Re-Presentation.” Critique (Summer 2004). Web. 11 June 2013. <http://www.paolacarbone.com/vo/pm%20re-presentation.pdf>.

Rawson, James. “Why are gay characters at the top of Hollywood’s kill list?” The Guardian. 11 June 2013. Web. 11 June 2013. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2013/jun/11/gay-characters-hollywood-films>.

Rodriguez, Amanda. “The Hours: Worth the Feminist Hype?” Bitch Flicks. 3 April 2013. Web. 11 June 2013. <http://www.btchflcks.com/2013/04/the-hours-worth-feminist-hype.html>.

Schepper, Ron. “Phillip Glass – The Hours- Review.” Stylus. 1 September 2003. Web. 11 June 2013. <http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/philip-glass/the-hours.htm>