Inquiring Minds: Elisabeth Ly Bell on transferring literature to film

Two of this year’s highest grossing films — "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" — were drawn from equally popular works of fiction. In the wake of the recent announcement of this year’s Academy Awards nominations, the GSJ’s Mary Jo Curtis talked with Visiting Scholar Elisabeth Ly Bell, who teaches "Fiction into Film" for the Brown Learning Community, about the similarities and differences between literature and film.

What is the biggest challenge of adapting literature to film?

Language. The more sophisticated, metaphorical, and/or ironic the language of a written text is, the less a film will be able to convey that. Cinematic language has different tools.

What can a written text accomplish that a film cannot?

Fiction allows the reader to use his/her own fancy, inventiveness, vision — even doubt — to "see" a particular scene, event or character. The author has no final control over this; what he offers is a direction, a frame, which the reader then fills. In a film, on the other hand, this frame is already completely filled, nothing is left to be imagined. So when you watch an adaptation, it could go two ways: either deepen and enlarge the imagery you had from the reading, or, it could be a disappointment, lacking so much of what you had "seen" when reading the story.

Fiction can offer more in other ways. Consider "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest." Both the novel and the film were quite powerful. In the book, the story is told by the Indian, and through his voice you get a deeper understanding of a certain way of thinking, his view of the whole situation and his language. The film chose a different venue by foregrounding the character of McMurphy (played by Jack Nicholson), which gives the developments a different slant and perspective. Another useful example would be Robert Coover's famous short story "The Babysitter" (1969), turned into a movie by the same title in 1995 by director Guy Ferland. This film is not bad, yet there is just no way it could adequately render the original story's narrative intricacies, its poetic tricks and juxtapositions, or the mind-boggling beauty of this multilayered tale.

What can films do that fiction cannot?

Films can intensify impressions and images; they may fill gaps a reader wasn’t even aware of. They can widen the scope of the story. For example, in the Oscar-nominated film "In the Bedroom" — which was adapted from late Andre Dubus’ elliptical story "Killings" — there is a part of the ending that is not in the story. This change enlarges and opens up the story by suggesting more philosophical and moral questions. The original story is told chronologically backward, but in the film it’s straightforward.

Furthermore, films can dramatize different events simultaneously on one screen, a clear limitation of the print medium. A film can use color and, most importantly, sound. Mind you, I did not say "music" — which obviously is employed on many levels — because film also makes effective use of silence. Ultimately, the whole issue is one of language and the visual, of the inner eye, so to speak. And it's up to the consumer — the reader or the viewer — to make the choice: Does he prefer personal fantasy, illusion and creativity or a predetermined, fabricated view, a rendering over which he has no control, which he cannot influence.

In the 21^st century, does fiction or film have more influence and relevance in our lives?

They’re not mutually exclusive; the two can complement each other. And it is not a question of one medium being better than the other, since in an ideal case, a cinematic adaptation of a fiction would only add to the original, opening it up, offering more perspectives and enriching what you’ve read. However, there are areas one medium can cover better than the other one.

Nevertheless, today moving pictures are the most powerful and influential medium we have, both in positive and negative ways. Film does not only function on overt, direct levels, but also reaches subconscious, subliminal levels. Thus, pictures can deeply influence an audience without it being aware of that. Just think of the never-ending debate over Leni Riefenstahl — Adolf Hitler's notorious filmmaker — and her powerful films: Are they excellent films and highly aesthetic products, or brutal propaganda, or both?

Yet, people are still reading and are still hungry for printed fiction. And what about hypertext? Does it represent an in-between form? Does it allow the reader more choices than a book, or actually fewer, since hypertext appears to offer choices and invites — even necessitates — active reader participation? These choices or options, however, are clearly delimited; the author decides where and how far a reader is allowed to go. An old-fashioned novel, on the other hand, does not hinder the reader's free reign of imagination. There are no dead ends, no closed doors in a novel.