The British director John Madden last night defended the wholesale changes he has made to the film version of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, which had its world premiere in London.
Although the Oscar-winning maker of Mrs Brown and Shakespeare In Love resisted the temptation to change the title to Captain Corelli's Banjo, little else about Louis de Bernières's love story set during the war on the Greek island of Cephalonia remain intact.
The book's poignant ending was the first thing to go, because Madden claims "it is problematic on film although it works magnificently in the novel, as do many of the other narrative strands we had to do without".
While the homosexual overtones in the relationship between Corelli, the opera-loving Italian officer played by Nicolas Cage, and his comrade Carlo make it one of the most touching episodes in the book, it too disappears on film.
The most far-reaching change, however, is the way the film corrects the book's controversial anti-communist bias by depicting wartime Greek partisans as heroes rather than sadistic ideologues.
Mandras (Christian Bale), the fisherman whose love for Pelagia (Penelope Cruz) is forgotten when she falls for Corelli, is no longer shown as a rapist brutalised by his time in the leftwing resistance. Nor is there much reference to partisan atrocities, which landed the book in such hot water with Greek civil war veterans.
De Bernières, a former soldier and teacher who spent a fortnight on the island before writing the book, has declined to do interviews to support the film, though he did attend last night's charity premiere. Madden claimed that de Bernières was delighted with the film and had been consulted by both himself and screenwriter Shawn Slovo. She said she had cut out all reference to the civil war purely for reasons of plot and not to assuage prickly Greek sensibilities.
Joy over the likely tourist boom in Cephalonia - where the film was also shot - had been overshadowed by fears over how the thorny issue of how the vicious conflict, in which Britain played a shadowy part, would be treated. Many were angry at how de Bernières had treated the partisans, whose defeat in 1949 ushered in decades of repressive rightwing rule. The writer himself had already made concessions to the criticism by making changes to the Greek edition of the book.
"After the writing of Corelli it became clear to me that many people were offended by the portrayal of the communist resistance, or thought that it was inaccurate," he said. "I haven't changed my mind about what I think is the truth, but I had to bear in mind the possibility that I might be wrong."
Madden and the British producers Working Title, however, were much more willing to compromise, and have concentrated purely on the love triangle between Mandras, Pelagia, and Cage's Corelli.
Irene Papas, the Greek actress who plays the old woman Drosoula, said the film could not be a documentary nor remain utterly faithful to the book.
"I lived through the period the novel covers and I remember it very differently. That said, the writer has a right to tell any story he wants to."
