Literature-to-Film Adaptation Analysis 251

Thus adaptation process analysis focuses on what went into making the film adaptation
and requires availability of information that often can be found on the DVD, and also
information that can be found on www.imdb.com, www.metacritic.com, and in articles,
interviews, and reviews that can be researched. As I’ve said, many of the well-known
and more recent films are associated with books detailing the making of that particular
film; screenplays can be found on the Internet and often screenplays of more major
films can be bought in book form.

Fidelity/Infidelity Analysis

Although fidelity criticism has been treated as a heinous crime consistently committed
against film adaptations among film adaptation theorists and scholars, I insist on retain-
ing it as a valuable means to analyze film adaptation. Admittedly, when used simply
to point out the similarities and differences between the two texts, or what was not
included or what was replaced, it can result in a dreadfully dull analysis. However, I’ve
coined a different phrase: fidelity/infidelity analysis. Fidelity criticism or as I prefer,
fidelity/infidelity analysis, can be applied to lit-to-film adaptation analysis to explore an
understanding of why the film was made the way it was, and why the filmmaker adapted
the novel the way they did, and what about the novel was used to formulate the film.
This type of analysis is not to be used to say the film did this as well as the book, or the
film didn’t achieve the adaptation as it should or could have. This analysis is not meant
for evaluative or judgment purposes or in any way to encourage the competition studies
that seem a staple of this discipline. Instead, fidelity/infidelity analysis can illuminate
why certain scenes might have been used in the film, but weren’t in the book, or why
certain scenes were retained in the film and some almost “as is.” When an important
scene in the book is dropped, it’s valuable to consider, based on an understanding one
has come to about both the book and the film, what the reasoning might be behind los-
ing the scene as well as why one might be added, or kept.
This analysis can be applied to the film Children of Men, adapted from P. D. James’s
The Children of Men. The film drastically reinvents the book in filmic form, yet both
build from the basic premise of a future plagued by, among other disasters, universal
infertility. The film is so different from the book that an analysis could be quite exten-
sive (see Appendix C). Some questions that could be asked of this film adaptation are
as follows.

1. How does Alfonso Cuarón, the director, and those who work with him create the
documentary effect, and why? What does this style bring to the film?
2. How does Cuarón’s style as director compare/contrast with James’s style as
author?
3. The screenwriter made drastic changes to the plot and the characters. What was the
effect the screenwriters (supposedly five in this case) were going for? Why might
those changes have been made taking into account the main thrust of the film, in
comparison to the main thrust of the book?
4. There are two scenes, one in the book and one in the movie, that both depict a cha-
otic attack on the main characters. The scene in the book is towards the end, while

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 252 ANALYZING LITERATURE-TO-FILM ADAPTATIONS

the scene in the film is more towards the beginning, and in each scene a major but
different character dies. How does the choice of the character who dies in the film
reflect the choice of the character who dies in the book?
5. Why might Cuarón have chosen to use long scenes with continuous shooting? How
does this affect the feel of the movie, while challenge the feel of the book?

Fidelity/infidelity analysis is the rare occasion where neither fidelity nor infidelity is
necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. It depends on how the degree of fidelity or
infidelity influences the outcome of the film and in what ways and why. This is the
question that predominates: why? This analysis involves an examination of why the
filmmaker chose to make the changes that were made, or why very few changes were
made, or for what greater overarching purpose and effect either changes or no changes
were made. The crux of this analysis is to determine whether the fidelity or infidelity
accomplishes a certain goal or feel in the film, and whether or not that might have or
might not have been the desired goal.

Specificity Analysis

Specificity analysis can be an intriguing way to look at each text in its respective
medium and how each medium is used to bring out the story it does. This study can
focus on the techniques specific to each medium, and explore why certain techniques
were used in each medium. It can be interesting to see how one technique in the book
brings out the same effect in the film but through a different technique. Perhaps a tone
is created in the book due to the minimalist format of the text, and its sparseness. It
might give the characters a simplistic feel. However, in the film, this same effect is
brought out through the types of props used, or the costuming of the characters, even
their hair and makeup. However, different techniques can be used to purposefully effect
different results, and this can be examined as well. It can usually be assumed that the
director planned for the effect that has been achieved, but the viewer might see some-
thing in the film that the director didn’t plan for a viewer to see, much like a novelist
can’t possibly know the myriad of ways their novel will be interpreted. So the ques-
tions for specificity analysis concern what techniques were used in the novel to bring
out certain aspects of the narrative or story, and what techniques were used in the film
to bring out certain aspects of the story. Such questioning could lead to a discussion
of different techniques used in each medium to achieve similar effects, and different
techniques used to achieve purposefully different effects. It might also involve a dis-
cussion of similar techniques used in both the novel and the film — such as point of
view, or the plot structure, among others.
The specificity approach can be used to analyze The Constant Gardener in a very
focused manner. In John Le Carré’s spy novel, chapters 11 though 14 are various inter-
texts of emails, news articles, letters, excerpts from books, documents, police files,
transcripts, and one very nasty note that indicates to Justin Quayle that his wife had
been threatened before she was killed. Justin tells the boy working on Tessa’s computer:
“Whatever she was working on, I want to follow her footsteps and read whatever’s in
there” (2001, 251). This is a rather experimental format for a spy novel, and cannot be

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