Popular Culture Review Vol. 10, No. 2, August 1999 | Page 33

The Aspern Papers and The Lost Moment

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very opening scene immediately gives away this same ending; thus, there is no
question, even from the start, that the film’s publisher will ultimately fail to achieve,
as Lewis’s colleague Charles calls it, “the publishing triumph of the decade.”
Because we know this publishing triumph will not occur, the film lacks
Jamesian ambiguity in presenting the fate of the letters. We also learn in the begin
ning of the film—and witness at its end—a scene with the narrator actually read
ing the letters, a scene that certainly never occurs in the tale. As Lewis recalls,
“Over thirty years ago, I, Lewis Venable, then an ambitious young publisher, read
those letters. For a few, amazing tormented hours, I held them in my hand—
literary treasures . . . ”. Indeed Lewis satisfies his curiosity about the letters’ con
tents and we see him dramatically patting his brow and breathing deeply between
each letter. To say the least, the satisfaction of actually reading the mysterious
letters leaves the film’s publisher far less tormented than the tale’s narrator, who
never even catches so much as a glimpse of the letters before learning—^to his
horror—that Tina has deliberately burned them all, “one-by-one” (96).
By shortening and cutting the original story, the film script shifts the
emphasis from the literary quest to adult romance. Because of Tina’s allure, in
fatuated Lewis has to keep reminding himself of the Ashton letters, as in this voice
over: “For a moment I hesitated. The memory of the evening—of Tina, lovely
beyond words—held me. But no. It was an illusion. The letters. The letters alone
were what I had come for, or what I wanted.” The line is only one of many illus
trations of how quickly Lewis forgets the letters when he is in Tina’s presence. By
the film’s end, he sacrifices the pursuit of his literary obsession as James’s pub
lisher never does; the film’s publisher even makes the choice to give up the very
letters for which James named the novel. In the quite non-Jamesian finale, Lewis
snaps Hayward’s character out of her “Juliana” state, shouts her true name “Tina,”
drops the letters, and watches the papers bum up with the entire house. (The an
cient Juliana has accidentally set the house on fire by knocking over a candle.)
Nevertheless, Brad Darrach of Time mocks the pat melodrama of the film’s nonJamesian denouement: “Though lose he must the literary remains, yet wins him
self the woman of his heart” (104). Bosley Crowther of the New York Times also
objected to the “departure” from James’s tale into the “spooky romance” of the
film that—for him—added up to “little more than average ‘horror’” (2).
A new “scoundrel” character, not found in the tale, is introduced in the
film: Charles Russell (John Archer) is a “derelict artist” who provides Lewis with
the tip that the Ashton letters may be in the Bordereau house. He appears to be a
conflation of the tale’s Mrs. Prest, John Cumnor, and even the “scoundrel” aspects
of the publisher himself However, the film’s Lewis is declared to be ""not a scoun
drel” by both Juliana and the priest. Father Rinaldo, who is another added charac
ter. The film’s conflict rises when the stock villain, Charles, unsuccessfully tries to