Analyze 
Use the basic features.

A Well-Supported Argument: Transforming Fiction Into Film

E-Page 98

Filmmakers who adapt books for movies make choices about what to keep or drop and what to amplify or downplay. Sometimes they make such changes for purely practical reasons—for example, to transform a 500-page book into a two-hour movie. Other times, their aims may be to quicken the pace of a story or emphasize one character’s point of view over another’s. Although the makers of “The Story of an Hour” video were not working with a full-length book, they made careful choices about what to change, include, or eliminate.

ANALYZE & WRITE

Write one or two paragraphs analyzing the adaptation of “The Story of an Hour” into a short video:

  1. Why do you suppose that the videographers used first-person narration instead of the third-person narration that was used in the printed story? How does this change affect viewers’ perceptions of Mrs. Mallard?
  2. Compare the description of Mrs. Mallard’s sense of freedom from paragraphs 10–16 of the story with the one in this portion of the video. Compared with the story, what does the video eliminate, and what does it amplify?
  3. Overall, do you think that the videographers capture the essence of the story? If not, what other elements of the printed story might have been integrated into the video? Conversely, does the video achieve anything that the printed story does not?

    Question

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