There is a telling statement in the prologue to Richard Attenborough’s movie Gandhi (1982) which says ‘No man's life can be encompassed in one telling... there is no way to give each event its allotted weight, to recount the deeds and sacrifices …what can be done is to be faithful in spirit to the record of his journey, and to try to find one's way to the heart of the man...’
Difference between a book and a film
This seems to state, quite succinctly, the differences between a book and a film. A written biography would have had the room to include ‘each event’ and give it its ‘allotted weight’ and recount every deed and sacrifice. A film, by comparison and limited to a few hours, can only pick and choose, always aiming to make as great a dramatic spectacle possible.
Herein lies the basic difficulty of transforming a novel into a screenplay, they are very different beasts. One of the best translations of book to screen was Milos Forman’s version of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) by Ken Kesey (Viking Press, 1962). The film is very faithful to the original with the vast majority of the events depicted, yet purists still complain because the novel is written from the viewpoint of Chief Bromden, a secondary character, and the film-makers did not follow this device.
In the end run it wouldn’t have worked, because McMurphy is the central character, the protagonist, and it is his story the reader and viewer follow. Kesey made Bromden’s viewpoint central because it is divorced from the conflict between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched, but this is unnecessary on-screen where the audience is already divorced from the action.
Show it, don’t tell it
In transforming a novel into a screenplay the writer must fillet the book, extracting the major characters, settings and events while establishing the major plot points and which are minor sub-plots. Only after doing this can he make decisions about what is important and what can be discarded. The golden rule, of course, is always ‘show it, don’t tell it’. This doesn’t just refer to car crashes and explosions which are obviously the bread and butter of modern western cinema, but to every physical act that can be viewed, down to the humble kiss.
Having said that, and with the advent of computer generated images (cgi) just about anything can be depicted visually, dialogue is still a major driving force of plot within a film and anyone adapting a novel for film will look for telling interchanges that can be used verbatim.
By using these as a framework, along with the dramatic physical events available, the screenwriter sets out a framework which is loyal to the source material, establishing the characters’ personalities and the story they live through. Only then would he bring any creativity of his own into play, filling in the gaps between the framework with the requirements of his paymasters.
Script doctors
Once the screenplay is complete the collaborative nature of making a film will come into play and may come as a surprise to the novelist who has only ever dealt with an editor at his publishers. By comparison a veritable army of people will descend on his work, all with their own opinion of what it should be, and emphasising the importance of their own contribution. From actors to set designers they will, with any luck, all be talented individuals who will add to the substance of what the writer has created. Other writers or script doctors may be brought in and there is nothing more demeaning than having someone else desecrate your vision. This is the price the screenwriter pays for being rewarded so well.
Gurmeet Mattu - Gurmeet Mattu was born and lives in Glasgow, Scotland, but is of Indian (Sikh) descent. He trained as a journalist at the Polytechnic of ...
