From Page to Picture: The Dilemmas of Adaptation

By Paul Millward,
As someone who has always been hopelessly in love with both the printed word and the moving image, I have over the years, watched with varying degrees of discomfort, many dearly cherished novels materialise before my eyes on celluloid in sometimes shockingly distorted ways. I have often been left wondering if it is even possible to successfully and comprehensively condense a deep and complex novel into a commercially viable film. Can the movie ever be much more than just a glorified trailer for the book?
But why is the film industry so dependent upon books? It may seem a str...