Sex, lies and needlework: review of The scarlet letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne; movie directed by Roland Joffe)

摘要

I have an image of an extraterrestrial anthropologist holding a copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel in one hand and a video tape of Roland Joff's 1995 film in the other. I imagine her examining these two versions of The Scarlet Letter as the only artefacts of human culture available to her. I can hear her baffled query: 'what could cause such regression in a civilisation?'