Crusoe

INITIAL SLACK-JAWED RESPONSE: I...um...er...what the...how did...did they actually...please, please no...oh, forget it.

MORE ARTICULATE RESPONSE: The production team of this new miniseries have slapped the name "Crusoe" on what more accurately might be described as a twenty-first century burlesque of the Robinsonnade.  Despite occasional nods to Defoe's novel, like pointing out that the Crusoe family's real name is Kreutznaer, the first episode mostly cooks up an ill-assorted stew of Johann Wyss' Swiss Family Robinson (as others have noted),  R. L. Stevenson's Treasure Island, and, for some reason, Pirates of the Caribbean--the lead pirate is a Geoffrey Rush clone--all moving along in a pseudo-matinee serial format that seems like something that George Lucas might have thought up.  The violence is deliberately cartoony: various folks get hanged, shot, and eaten by piranhas without the slightest trace of blood to be seen.  Crusoe himself seems remarkably youthful, not to mention well-shaven.

From the POV of a scriptwriter, the great problem with Robinson Crusoe is that the novel's external adventure scenes come mostly at the beginning and the end.  Otherwise, the novel traces Robinson's internal explorations--not least of which is his slow discovery of how to write his own life story--and the mundane, repetitive work that turns a deserted island into what will one day become a productive colony.  Near the beginning of Crusoe, though, Robinson announces "I am Robinson Crusoe," and this confidence does not suggest that being marooned on an island will trigger an identity crisis.  Instead, the real subjective drama emerges in the numerous flashbacks that detail the apparent suicide of Robinson's mother (come again?), his dealings with a purported benefactor named Blackthorn (er, who?), and his sexually-fulfilling and fertile marriage to the lovely Susannah (say what?).  The flashbacks set Robinson up as a victim of what was apparently somebody else's bad behavior--Blackthorn being the primary candidate, what with the name and all--not as a rebellious son who ignores both dad's advice and multiple warning signs from providence.  This Crusoe's island does not turn out to be a God-given opportunity for introspection.  It is not clear, in fact, if any introspection needs to be done. 

Of course, the production team had another problem: Friday.  They make a valiant effort to update Defoe's Friday for contemporary sensibilities, but go so spectacularly over-the-top that one suspects a joke.  Somewhere.  Here, the very name "Friday" signals not Crusoe's translation of this strange figure into his own narrative terms, but Friday's own mockery of Crusoe's inability to speak his real name.  This is one of the episode's cleverer moments, establishing a subtle parallel between "Friday" and Crusoe himself (called Crusoe because no Englishman can pronounce Kreutznaer).  In fact, Friday turns out to be a linguistic wizard, capable of speaking twelve languages (!) and memorizing Paradise Lost after hearing Crusoe read it once (!!).  Moreover, the script turns directly against the novel by making Crusoe repeatedly deny that Friday is a "savage."  This Friday is in no way Crusoe's intellectual or physical subordinate, let alone his servant or (as he pointedly reminds Crusoe) his slave.  Unfortunately, the producers then provide this sidekick for the new age with a backstory featuring stereotypical cannibals straight out of 50s illustrations, complete with human bones for drumsticks.  (At which point I stared at the screen and said, in my best C-3PO voice, "Oh, dear.")  Needless to say, there's no mention of Crusoe's involvement with slavery...

Not surprisingly, despite the episode's cosmetic references to providence, the novel's religiosity has also departed for parts unknown.  As Gina Bellafonte notes with admirable understatement, Crusoe "doesn’t get bogged down in the book’s understanding of natural man and moral conversion."  Early on, Crusoe's father (Sean Bean, not swashing any buckles) tells the youthful Crusoe to buck himself up by thinking back on the good times, and this advice both justifies the flashbacks and substitutes for the adult Crusoe's conversion experience.  Once again, instead of the transformative self-investigation that Defoe's Crusoe must undertake, this Crusoe (so far) journeys into his mind only to reaffirm the value of all he has done.  This Crusoe finds emotional sustenance in the memory of lost pleasures, not in the discovery of divine grace; it's no wonder that the producers have drastically shortened the novel's time frame, the better to get Crusoe back to his purely secular paradise lost. 

Comments

[The History Enthusiast]

While I definitely agree with your review, I think that it could've been much worse.

I guess I have low expectations when it comes to historical movies or TV shows, because the main complaint I had was that it was WAY too long. I may keep watching...I don't really mind that they don't stick to the book, as long as that is clear to the viewer. I hate it when people substitute TV or movies for reading the actual, real novel or text. Hopefully this will encourage people to go back and read the book (or read it again, in my case).