But he does regret the toning down of a scene where the 'hero' is emotionally cruel to the woman he loves, because she has earlier rejected him.
When she's at her most vulnerable, and despite the fact that she's clearly still fond of him, and grief-stricken at the loss of her father, he seizes the first opportunity he's had in weeks to hurt her.
This outcome, needless to say, is not in the film.
Is this just Hollywoodising? Are painful scenes harder to stand in films than in books? Must we tone down pain in order to make a film watchable? Sometimes I think I fear the experience of emotional pain in the cinema more than in any other medium, because I can't walk away. I can leave the room when a film on TV gets too painful (I missed about 50% of 'Breaking the Waves' that way). I can read a novel over days or weeks if I have to. Stuck in the cinema, there is no escape.
