This page was created by Cait Marshall. The last update was by David Squires.
Adaptation
In 1974, film production company Tomorrow Entertainment, Inc. released a 111-minute made-for-television film adaptation of Ernest J. Gaines's 1971 novel, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Directed by John Kroty and produced by Bob Christiansen and Rick Rosenberg, the film was well received by audiences following its January 31, 1974 release. Although, being an adaptation of a much longer text, the film noticeably lacked several scenes and characters, and, in their place, the film's screenplay writer, Tracy Keenan Wynn, created scenarios in the film that were never seen in the novel. Gaines, who decided not to be involved in the screenwriting or editing process, calls attention to these changes in his own critical review of the film six years after the film's production took place.
The script was labeled as final and complete on August 15, 1973, according to the cover page of the film’s final screenplay, which can be found in the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Gaines Center collections. The final draft of the film’s screenplay calls for over 300 minutes worth of unedited, uncut content. Ultimately, extensive cuts were made to the film, differing the film from the final script even further. So far as we know, none of these cut scenes has ever been released, but some of them can still be read in the script. Meaning, the scenes were written and filmed, but once they made it to the editors' table, they were thrown out.
There are three specific changes the adaptation makes that are especially notable: the choice to make the person interviewing Miss Jane Pittman a white man from New York, the complete erasure of Tee-Bob, and the addition of the film’s alternate ending.
So why does this adaptation matter? In 1974, when the film came out, there had yet to be any major films, television shows, or any true media that reflected and represented the black community. Roots, a ground breaking mini-series following the ancestry of a slave throughout American history, did not come out until 1977. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman was one of the first films to focus on almost an entirely black cast. The film made waves and, I believe, made shows like Roots possible to flourish and make the impact that it did.
Adaptations expand the reach of novels by opening new venues and making the story more accessible. By producing a movie shortly after the original novel came out, Gaines's novel found a new following, reached new audiences, and was given an afterlife.
Who Is that White Guy?
Differences between text and film can be seen within the first few minutes of the film. “Where did this plane come from? Who is that white guy?” asks Gaines in his own film review and critique following the release of the 1974 film. In response to movie critics and reviews, Gaines wrote his own review in 1979 stating, "I wrote a book, if you want to criticize me, criticize me about that. Not the movie."
Going in order of visible changes, we will first be looking at what Gaines believes to be one of the most criticized differences in the film: the decision to cast Michael Murphy, a white man, to play Quentin Lerner, the journalist from New York who interviews 110-year-old Miss Jane Pittman. In 1979, Gaines writes, “Let’s take the white reporter first. There have been questions and questions as to why he’s in the film. I have been personally criticized by black students all over this country for allowing him to be the interviewer—as if I had anything to do with it.” While Jane Pittman's life and story came from Gaines, he was not part of the writing process for this screenplay and had anything to do with the casting, shooting, or production of the film. “I had been offered the position of a technical advisor,” Gaines writes, “which I had turned down” (1979). So why were audiences so mad about Quentin being white? In the novel, and stated by Gaines, the young man who comes to Pittman is supposed to be a black school teacher from around Baton Rouge. The choice behind this change was never made clear, but considering when the film came out, Gaines has a theory: "to please the American public" (1979).
In the early 1970s, white American audiences were not ready to see a film where the only white people on screen are cruel slave owners, even if they are portraying history accurately. Gaines speculates while responding to this issue that Wynn might have based Quentin a bit on himself when he first visited South Louisiana. Regardless of why this change took place, the choice to make Quentin a white New Yorker is easily the most obvious change from novel to film.
Erasure of Tee Bob and Mary Agnes
Despite having been written and filmed, scenes involving Tee Bob Samson and his relationship with Mary Agnes LeFabre were ultimately cut from the film's final version. Unlike the previous point of discussion, the removal of theses scenes is a good thing and Gaines himself writes, “when I think of those kinds of scenes being clipped out, I feel that it was a blessing that we did not have more time on television” (1979).
This is a drastic change compared to how Gaines felt about Joe’s lines being cut. What’s different now? Tee Bob, the white son of Robert Samson who owns the Plantation Jane Pittman is working on at the time, falls in love with a Creole woman, Mary Agnes. In the novel, Tee Bob is seen attempting to court Mary Agnes and not understanding why she does not seem to reciprocate his affections. Arriving to Mary Agnes’ cabin one night, drunk, Tee Bob tells her “I want you in the car,” to which she replies “ I can’t get in that car, Robert. Don’t you know that?" (Autobiography 186). I am highlighting this interaction between the two because in the screenplay there is a scene in which Tee Bob and Mary Agnes are seen getting in a Model-T, driving off to live happily ever after, and they are never seen again.
The first time the script calls for an interaction between Tee Bob and Mary Agnes, Jane Pittman addresses their relationship in a voice over: “Peoples started noticing Tee-Bob and Mary Agnes… No matter how white you was, if you didn’t have Creole background, they didn’t want you mixing.” This scene is set up to take place in 1933, when interracial relationships were looked upon as miscegenation and widely prohibited.
The Walk to the Fountain
The final major change to the story can be found in the final ten minutes of the film. In The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, the final scene takes place after the shooting of Jimmy. Miss Jane Pittman is preparing to lead a few folks from the Quarters to Bayonne, where Jimmy was shot. “Just a little piece of him is dead,” she says. “The rest of him is waiting for us in Bayonne. And I will go with Alex” (Autobiography 259). She looks at Robert Samson and takes her leave. The end. But, the film goes a different direction and Gaines’ lays this change at the feet of Wynn, deflecting the criticism he has received for this change away from himself.
“I, of course, did not write that scene,” Gaines explains. “And the director of the film, John Korty, was not particularly crazy about it, but Tracy said it would be there, or else…” and it appears Wynn had the final say so in this matter because, as one can see, the walk Jane Pittman takes to the fountain remains in the final cut of the film.