Successfully adapting a novel into a film is a hard task by default. This statement is especially true when the adapted literary work is popular. When reading a literary work the images and the characters are formed by the reader based on the description and the narration presented in the book.
The film on the other hand is formed mostly on the basis of the vision of the director who might edit certain elements of the plot in favor of hisher artistic ideas. Nevertheless, there are several examples of successful adaptations where the film might surpass the original literary source in popularity. One of such adaptations is Rear Window, a 1954 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on Cornell Woolrich’s 1942 short story It Had to Be Murder.
This paper analyzes the differences between the story and the film as well as evaluating these changes in terms of effectiveness.
The strategy of adapting the story into a book used by Hitchcock is mostly the interweaving strategy which is the filmmakers keeping most of the elements of narrative from the story, dispersing them throughout the film (although not necessarily in their original order) and interweaving either new elements or expanding the existing ones.
The usage of such strategy is obvious throughout the whole film, as the short story is written completely in a first person perspective whereas the film is changing the perspectives of the narration most of the time. This can be seen in scenes where Hitchcock provides the perspective of Thorwald and switch back to Jeffries. This change of perspective could be seen as effective as it makes the viewer associate the perspective of the protagonist and the antagonist at the same time. The book provides only the Jefferies’ perspective, making the reader feel the thoughts of the protagonist.
Although the main plot of the story was the same, another difference could be seen in introducing some subplots in the movie. One of such subplots is the introduction of the character of Lisa, Jeffries’ girlfriend as well as changing the gender of the house keeper. While changing the housekeeper’s gender might not be of importance, the introduction of a love interest adds an additional aspect to the character of Jefferies.
Other subplots include the characters of the neighbors which lives Jeff was watching. The introduction of the additional subplots did not change the main line of the story, and at the same time introducing details of neighbors’ life can be associated with the viewer watching the film from hisher perspective.
Another difference can be seen in the overall development of the plot details. In the story the details of Jeffries background are revealed throughout the narration, whereas in the movie most of the details were told at the beginning of the film.
This was done by the director possibly to the fact that the story was short and had plenty of space for the director’s interpretation, and in that way Hitchcock by showing the background early in the film dedicated the rest of the running time for showing the characters development.
The success of the film’s interpretation was due to the fact that despite the changes, the main idea was transferred perfectly by Hitchcock which is the feel of suspense. In that sense the made changes affected the original script only from a positive side.