Different People, Different Interpretations.

Everyone imagines everything differently. When reading a book, or a story, each and everyone of us imagines it differently. Some may think more happily about it, others more sadly. Some with bright colors and others with opaque colors. Films that are based on novels, are just one of the many ways to imagine a story. That's why many movies based on novels get so many bad reviews and negative comments from those who have read the book, because everyone imagines it differently. 

When I was reading the play, Waiting for Godot, I imagined it in a completley differently way from how it was portrayed in the film. I had in mind very different characters, and specially a totally opposite setting. "A country road. A tree. Evening." (Pg. 1)  For instance, the stage directions for the setting of the play exert a warm image to me. Country road; the connotations I get from that, is the typical unpaved road, near a field of grass protected by an old wooden fence, with mountains as a background. To me that is a "Country Road". Not a dirty, destroyed, abandoned road. 

Waiting for Godot was written in post a WWII depression era. People didn't know what to live for. God had let them down during war, and it was a time were existentialist thoughts came blooming through out the world. I recall a quote from the book, Night, by Elie Wiesel. This book narrates Wiesel's experience during the holocaust. People began to loose their faith in God, specially in his protection. For instance, Wiesel said, “How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end up in the furnaces? Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar?” (Pg. 67)

The tree is the least important of all, because a green road as the one I imagined could have dead trees. But the dirty, and destroyed road, with no grass near by was what came as a shock to me. How the movie setting is shown, is just a way of putting the play into context. The road, the tree. They are all dead. They are a symbol of a war ragged earth. They show what wars brings. Which is only destruction.