Visualising the Internal - the transference of emotion and theme through cinematic language in the adaptation of novel to screen

Abstract

The exegesis investigates how the interiority of emotion and overarching premise in a novel is visualised in the novel to film adaptation process. It specifically looks at the varied collaborative stages of filmmaking – from development, scriptwriting, pre production and principal photography, as a way of acknowledging the process and contribution of the film crew as novel is turned into film. By investigating the interpretive choices and decisions of three specific roles – the screenwriter, cinematographer and director – I break down the contributions and collaborations of these key creative practitioners at distinctive moments of the production process, to gain a greater understanding of how the translation of emotion and premise interiority from novel to screen occurs. As a case study, I investigate the collaboration between the late screenwriter/director/adaptor, Anthony Minghella CBE, and his Australian director of photography, John Seale ACS ASC, to explore what occurs between the cinematographer and director, as they work towards turning the screenplay into images and performance. My practice-led research, a feature length screenplay of the Rodney Hall novel Love Without Hope (1997), informed my research, not only into the role of the screenwriter as interpreter, and how she writes for a technically skilled crew, but also as a way of understanding the nature of the reader’s individual sensibilities when it comes to adapting a source that is not their own. SCREENPLAY: Lorna Shoddy was once a strong young woman who bred horses, ran her farm and loved a man, Martin, that many in her small town did not approve of. Now she is old, alone and finds herself in an asylum for the insane. It is 1983 in Australia, and the Master in Lunacy has the power to take a woman who he deems unfit to look after herself and put her away against her will. To keep herself sane, Lorna retreats into memory, summoning her past to make sense of her present, until she is able to remember a moment long ago, a decision she made that changed everything; and the grief and guilt that caused her to end up where she is. It is only through re living this moment, truly accepting and acknowledging it, that she can forgive herself, find the strength to escape, and head home.