This movie is based on a novel by Jose Saramago, who won a Nobel Prize for Literature over a dozen years ago. However, Senor Saramago's scenario (in which a dozen blind dimbulbs are lost in the darkness of their own ignorance) is not new to literature -- Maurice Maeterlinck's play, "The Blind" (also called "The Sightless"), is a well-known predecessor in this regard. Maeterlinck won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911, primarily for a series of horrifying puppet plays ..... but is primarily known to American movie-goers for his light-hearted "Blue Bird of Happiness," a children's story made into a movie with Shirley Temple in 1940, in an attempt to compete with "The Wizard of Oz." But Senor Saramago not only borrowed from Maeterlinck, he also incorporates essential elements of Bertolt Brecht's play "Mother Courage and Her Children" (1940). In the movie, "The Blind," no credit is given to Maeterlinck or Brecht.
Review of Blindness
