51. Wall
In
a book, you can enter the minds of the characters
and hear them think. This is why many film adaptations fail. The writers
and directors attempt to put on screen their protagonists' internal
monologue. Of course it looks clumsy and uncomfortable.
Often the film maker will use flashbacks or dream sequences to illustrate
a character's state of mind or motivation. But film is an impatient
narrative form with an audience trained to anticipate tightly woven
sequences of cause and effect.
Gazing abstractedly at a wall in my garden recently,
an image from a film came to mind.
John Wyndham's novel The Midwich Cuckoos tells the story of a village, inexplicably isolated from all contact for a short period. After a time, it transpires that the women of the village are pregnant. They give birth – each to an oddly-beautiful, emotionless child.
Wyndham builds suspense into his narrative, slowly revealing how dangerous the children will become as they grow up. Their parents' painful realisation of their alien nature is skilfully developed. A decision is taken to kill them.
The man charged with their education takes a bomb into the classroom where they are all assembled. The children realise that he is concealing something from them. They combine the strength of their minds to pierce his secret.
The film-makers decided at this point to present an image on screen. The man is thinking of a brick wall. He is visualising the wall as a mental barrier to the children. The children see the brick wall. The cinema audience sees the brick wall. We see the wall begin to crumble. As it gives way to the weight of the children's superior minds, all heads turn and all eyes focus on the man's briefcase, in which the bomb is concealed.
But too late. The explosion destroys them all.
My advice is not to follow this pattern, to write films instead of books
or books instead of films. Simply, I recommend that you get hold of
a copy of both film and book. Compare how the scene
is exploited in the two media and draw your own conclusions.
