#Noirtier

[chateau-dilf]

My Little Château d’If doodles

[vickyvicarious]

Noirtier is trying to build up an immunity to poison in Valentine! A wise precaution, though it seems perhaps a little too late...

[kashilascorner]

MADAME DE VILLEFORT WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU BITCH I SWEAR HASN'T VALENTINE SUFFERED ENOUGH ALREADY

[ninadove]

[mzannthropy]

It's so annoying that we still have to wait MONTHS for The Count of Monte Cristo limited series but they could at least release the cast list, so that we know who's in it and who isn't. How long am I supposed to be speculating for, at least if I have to get disappointed about whatever, let it be asap.

[none-ofthisnonsense]

I have few favourite characters in the Count of Monte-Cristo but Noirtier is THE favourite for me...

[mervynbunter]

A very enjoyable couple of evenings (it's a long film!) except Angèle's storyline is bleak.

Caderousse is more fortunate than Dumas's character; Benedetto is more sympathetic.

The Storm Darragh plan is to keep cosy and finally watch this year's adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo 🫖

[lamuradex]

Okay. Here are the things about The Count of Monte Cristo I adore, but I am certain adaptations will get wrong without having watched any adaptations.

Edmond's father being a major motivator for his revenge. Films, for brevity, mainly seem to focus on Mercedes and his ruined marriage. Thanks Hollywood.

Villefort having no connection to the other people who betrayed Edmond. One of the most tragic elements is that Villefort is actually about to save Dantes, right before he sacrifices him to save himself. I'm aware of at least one musical that has Villefort conspire together with Danglars and Fernand. I love the songs but that bothers me.

Caderousse. I can imagine some versions cut him out as superfluous. The musical seems to replace him with Villefort. But he's the fourth conspirator! And the first to fall.

A whole bunch of the subplots. Do the films need all the stuff with Monsieur Noirtier? Maybe not. Is Monsieur Noirtier the best character in the book? I think so. He's the most magnificent bastard in the plot.

The Morrels. Again, is it strictly necessary? I don't know. But, again, is there the scene where they reveal Monsieur Morrel's last words were to remember Edmond Dantes, making it my favourite scene in the book? You bet your ass!

Seriously, so many subplots I can see them cutting, but each one pays off in some way. Vampa, Franz, Eugenie Danglars, the Abbey Fariah's book

That scene at the end where The Count goes back to the Château d'If is beautiful

Adaptations will try to give it a happy ending, getting him back with Mercedes or something. But that isn't the point of the book.

Only a handful of characters get out of the book happy. And most of them have gone through hell first.

Also, The Count never actually fights anyone with a sword. He could, he's apparently lethal, but he never does. He's about to once, but then Fernand fucking panics when The Count puts on a sailor suit.

He literally leaves the room, gets changed, and then comes back in a sailor's uniform. It's so extra and I love it. And Fernand loses his shit! Understandably.

The whole revenge plan is so extra, so complex, so convoluted, there is no way you could adapt it all into a film.

And all because Edmond knows the Abbey Fariah wouldn't want him just killing them. Because that would be against God.

So instead he unleashes hell on them!

It's classic "No, I didn't kill them. They're just trapped in never ending misery for the rest of their days. So it's fine."

Bleed them dry of money, out them as a criminal, introduce poisons to his wife and introduce his illegitimate bastard to society.

I can see why you could never truly adapt this book.

Doesn't mean I have to be happy about it.

[thebusylilbee]

i like how the book constantly reminds us of how shallow and loveless most of the rich characters are :

Albert seems fully ready to kill Beauchamp, his friend, when he thinks he has insulted his family's honor ;

Albert is also fully ready to kill the Count, who he admired deeply, without even bothering to ask for an explanation to his behavior ;

Albert is instantly looked down upon by those who were supposed to be his closest friends when he apologizes to the Count ;

Debray treats Miss Danglars extremely coldly despite his intimate relationship with her ;

the Danglars, de Villeforts, and everybody else do not seem to be personally affected at all by the suicide of Fernand and the disappearance of his wife and kids, despite them supposedly being their friends ;

Nobody cares when Danglars leaves while bankrupt ;

Debray, Chateau-Renaud and Beauchamp keep disrespecting Morrel when they see him unwell after Valentine's death ;

etc. etc.

these people only care about gossiping they do not value human beings, as evidenced by de Villefort not even bothering to care for his own disabled father...

meanwhile the "good" characters who get the graces of the Count and the narrator are the ones who end up actually loving others profoundly, like Mercédès - and thanks to her also Albert in the end, who shows a deep devotion to his mother -, but also Eugénie and Mrs Armilly, and of course the trio Morrel, Valentine and Noirtier and the rest of the Morrel family who are all shown to be very loving and caring characters

[pedanther]

The Calendar of Monte Cristo: Chapter 112

c.1799: Birth of Mercédès. [R]

September 1838, Tuesday: The Count of Monte Cristo makes an offer to M. Noirtier, who accepts. The Count and Maximilien visit the Herbaults to say farewell, then leave Paris. [R]

September 1838, Wednesday: The Count and Maximilien board the Count’s steamship at Chalon, and continue to Marseille. They witness Mercédès waving Albert farewell as he embarks for Algiers. Maximilien visits his father’s grave. Edmond visits Mercédès. [R]

September 1838, Sunday: The Count has an appointment in Rome. [R]

The narrator says that it has been “eleven years” since Edmond rescued the Morrel family, which puts us even further in the future than when Edmond told Maximilien a few days ago that it was ten years. Somebody is bad at basic arithmetic, but I’m beginning to think I was unfair in pinning it on Edmond specifically.

Another piece of inflation occurs when the narrator says that Edmond buried the money for Mercédès’ dowry “twenty-five years ago”: when Edmond told Albert about it, only last month, he said it had been twenty-four years. Consequently, we have some wiggle room about when it happened, depending on which chapter we believe about how long ago it was this year and which chapter we believe about which year this is. If we take one of those numbers and count back from 1838, we find that it was a year or two before the story starts, which fits with Edmond telling Albert he had been worried that he might die at sea before it could be used. If we presume that this “twenty-five years ago” is on the same timeline as the earlier “eleven years”, that puts it in 1815 and gives us the dramatic result that Edmond buried it only the day before, or the morning of, his arrest.

(There are also times when, despite the narrator backing him up here, I suspect Edmond told Albert a romantic fable and he actually buried the money for Mercédès much more recently.)

[forsuperbang]

Was struck by a revelation : Noirtier shares some awful traits with my father...

[chateau-dilf]

Some very disjointed thoughts on Villefort I love him so dearly:

God book Villefort is Such A Way to me. Him not wanting to imprison Dantès and doing it anyway to save his reputation, him breaking down over his daughter's "death" but still barely interacting with his son despite wishing he had more time with Valentine. He does have that one small moment with him right before he confronts Heloise, and in that confrontation you can see how much he adored his daughter but still despite it all he was a man consumed by his ambition. For all his ruthlessness he has a lot of love inside him but he's so unwilling to let it come out or compromise what he wants, even so in the end it's his love for Valentine that fuels his ruthlessness when he gives the ultimatum to his wife.

He absolutely values his reputation and goals above his family (you could argue that him marrying Heloise, wanting to "give Valentine a mother" after Renée died even though her father was right there was a mixture of misguided familial love and preserving what a family "should" look like) but someone that didn't value them at all wouldn't go mad after their deaths. I keep thinking about how his search for Andrea/Benedetto's missing body is so representative of that - looking for the skeleton to prove that the baby really did die and that the entire trial was a farce, finding tangible proof that his life isn't over as if finding it could reverse all the deaths. All of this right after he's picked up Edouard's lifeless body with a plan to escape (before he realises he's dead.) His life is over at that point but he doesn't turn to madness until everything is gone, his only remaining child was his lifeline.

Plus him going to his father after he loses it all, the one person he has left. He doesn't even care about Dantès's reveal, only dragging him straight to Edouard's body. Related to Noirtier, Villefort does know how to communicate with him when he could leave all the translation up to Valentine and Barrois. It's a low bar obviously and probably all out of the need to maintain a good reputation but it makes me wonder what their relationship was like before their political paths diverged. They both have a talent for schemes and are incredibly clever - they may have been enemies from day 1 but there's also the chance they were close for a while.

All this to say that man loved his family so much - but not more than his reputation and ambition. It is such an important part of his downfall to me.

(There is the attempted baby murder/hiding of a body if he actually thought Andrea was dead too but who would Villefort be without his hypocrisy 💖)

[vickyvicarious]

So Noirtier's definitely gonna change his will to only give Valentine his money if she's unmarried, or at least not to Franz, right? But it will have to be worded carefully to ensure that he doesn't leave a possibility open for Madame Villefort to get her hands on it somehow... and it does make me wonder if "I will make excuses for you" is going to move past explaining his system of communication, to trying to declare him mentally unfit if he tries to make any changes Villefort is too against. Definitely wouldn't put that past him, though he might not if Valentine is there to speak up on Noirtier's behalf.

[kashilascorner]

Omg is Noritier's plan to stop Valentine's marriage to tell Franz that Villefort Noirtier effectively murdered his dad??

[ninadove]

For the writing game! 8, 26, & 42 🎶

(feel free to do all, some, or none)

Number 8 for you, beloved! 🖤⚔️🪶

“I want things to be clear between us,” Franz warns, although he is in no position to do so. “This isn’t peace. Merely a truce.”

[mzannthropy]

The Count of Monte Cristo 2024

I said I was going to make a post on this, so *gestures here*.

As a film it is truly amazing, beautiful cinematography, it's worth watching just for how pretty it is. Nice costumes, and the musical score is good too. Pierre Niney is brilliant as the titular hero. As an adaptation, though, it doesn't quite deliver. Much better than the 2002 film, but that means the total sum of pick any number times zero.

Spoilers under the cut.

The whole film takes place in France (Marseille and Paris), and apart from Edmond finding the treasure on the Monte Cristo island, we don't set a foot in Italy. (Side note, he throws a torch into a hole, which, upon landing, reveals the treasure, but it's never shown how he actually managed to get down there to obtain it.)

Fernand is once again Edmond's friend. He is de Morcerf from birth and lives in a nice mansion; old Dantes is employed as a servant. This makes Mercedes noble too.

There's no Noirtier, instead Villefort has a Bonapartist sister, Angele. And you know what, I actually liked this change. In the scene where she comes to Villefort's house, she looks really badass, a bit like Anne Bonny, the pirate queen. Villefort is not getting married, but he has a mistress, whose name is Victoria and who is pregnant (and who later becomes Madame Danglars).

At the beginning of the film, Edmond saves Angele from drowning. Angele has the compromising letter on her, which is seized by Danglars, at this time the captain of the ship. When Morrel hears Danglars would have let a woman drown, the strips him of captaincy and appoints Edmond as a captain. It's the only scene we see Morrel in, and we see a little Maximilien, who is his grandson here, however, Maximilien never shows up again. It would have been better had they not bothered with him in the first place, it's more upsetting to see him wasted than not to see him at all.

Pierfrancesco Favino is so good as abbe Faria. It was neat of them to cast an actual Italian to play the role. He looks the part, also he's the right type of mad (after so many years at Chateau d'If, though I think Faria was always a bit mad, in a mad scholar way). The scene where they first meet, Edmond falls into his arms, laughing and crying at the same time and it's honestly so emotional. Brilliant acting.

Faria, like in the 2002 film, dies in a cave in, but I think that's actually a better choice for a film, easier to do than a lengthy explaining of an obscure illness.

After his escape, Edmond simply walks onto a dry land, stealing a shirt from a washing line in the process. The smugglers don't appear in the film. Neither do the brigands, for that matter. (In fact, no Italian characters made it.)

I will say this in favour of the film, all three antagonists are well developed. Villefort seems to have married later, but his wife takes no part in the story. One of the best scenes was the dinner party at the house in Auteil, where the count tells the story of the buried baby. Poor Madame Danglars is close to breaking down and Villefort is sweating from head to toe. It feels truly gothic.

Caderousse is in the film, he was the quartermaster of the ship. Edmond goes to him first and gives him the gem; later he is shown to lead a group of bandits? or robbers?, but nothing more is shown of him and I'm not sure what the writers were trying to do with him.

Eugenie appears very little only, but she does appear and is a lesbian (though her gf is called Suzanne, not Louise).

They worked in the count's disguises; abbe Busoni appears, so does Lord Halifax, who I take is supposed to be Lord Wilmore. (The scene with Lord Halifax is really funny.) The count uses actual masks for his disguises. (He uses a mask for his Monte Cristo persona as well. I wish he didn't.)

Lord Halifax publishes a tabloid in France, reporting the fake news of Danglars's ships being lost, which is how he eventually gets him.

The above mentioned Angele is the one who digs up and saves Villefort and Victoria's baby. This was a change I also liked, personally, it avoids some of the coincidences from the book. Poor Angele doesn't meet a nice end, but the count visits her on the death bed where she tells him the story. He then goes and gets the baby, now a young man named Andre and takes him under his wing. (This is the scene from the trailer, where Andre asks "who are you" and the count, answers "I am the count of Monte Cristo", it's the first time we hear him use this title.) Andre is to help the count carry out his revenge, adopting the identity of Andrea Cavalcanti.

Haydee and Andrea plot together with the count, in a heist-like fashion. It's cool and all that, however it's too major of a change for me to be able to just accept it. Over the years, I have become more relaxed about book to screen adaptations, but there are limits. This is one of them. It goes against everything the count is. It's like Jacopo in the 2002 movie, fun to watch, but the count doesn't do friends. He works on his own and doesn't rely on anyone else. That's one thing.

Another thing is: Albert. I hated the casting choice. Nothing against the actor, he was just not a good pick for Albert. He looks like a "softboi" if I get the label right, tall and thin and has blond angelic curls and looks like he would get knocked down by a stronger wind. That's not Albert. Nothing about him screams hold-my-beer-while-I-do-something-stupid himbo. They may as well have cast Timothee Chalamet (I mean, he's part French, isn't he? And at least has dark hair.) Then--and I knew this from the reviews so thankfully was prepared--the count makes Haydee seduce Albert, which she does, and then she falls for him for real. Like, okay, I think it's an idea worth exploring (falling in love with a son of the man who betrayed your father, which resulted in you being sold into slavery), but it needs proper time and effort to develop. It's got to either be another story of its own, or be a part of limited series. It looks like the screenwriters, giving Maximilien and Valentine the chop, still wanted their star-crossed lovers, so they did Haydee x Albert instead. I think some of Albert's lines were taken from Maximilien in the book. And we're just expected to believe that Haydee has fallen in love with Fernand's son, without her showing any conflict over her feelings. A walking dry white slice of bread of a man, who do you think Haydee is, Katniss fucking Everdeen? I'd sooner buy that she was in love with Andrea. She is certainly fond of him and is devastated by his death--he gets shot after stabbing Villefort.

Haydee is also angry at Edmond when Albert challenges him to a duel. Why, I can't answer--it was Albert who threw the glove. The duel does go ahead, though the night before, Mercedes comes to Edmond to plead for her son's life, and says the same line as in the book ("Edmond, you will not kill my son."). Edmond shoots away from Albert on purpose, then Albert raises his gun and stars crying. It was not shown exactly whether he fired or not, but obvs they both survived. The real Albert would not hesitate to shoot. Like I said, a complete milksop.

So anyway, Haydee and Albert run away together, with the count's blessing, Mercedes leaves Fernand and Fernand comes to confront Edmond and they have a sword fight. Haydee doesn't even get to accuse him!

The film ends with Edmond sailing away on his own, and Mercedes reading his letter. Although the letter includes the words "wait and hope", it doesn't quite land the same. The phrase was never used in the film previously.

It's open to interpretation whether they get together later or not.

I wonder if they made Mercedes a noblewoman bc they wanted to give her a nicer ending. She has a stronger network to fall back on after everything goes down. But idk, honestly, I might be wrong. I don't really care, tbh. I care more about the fact that abbe Faria was completely forgotten after Edmond found the treasure.

One last tidbit: there is a guard? a butler? working for the count, who looks a bit sinister (in a good way!) and I thought it was maybe their version of Ali. (I think he may have been of North African origin, though I might have got it wrong and will get in trouble now.) But the count called him Jacopo.

So yeah, that is that.