The Movies

It is difficult to make any book into a movie and still retain the essence of that book. This problem is much greater when the book lacks a great deal of physical action and instead focuses on the torments of a human mind. Michael Cunningham did not get a Pulitzer for The Hours because it has an amazing storyline. The Hours is an award winning book because of how the story is told. Translating the book from paper to film as anything but a nod to the book makes very little sense to me because of the obstacles in storytelling. All that said it would not be impossible to make a movie out of the book capable of standing on its own. This would require many things: A writer experienced with screenplays based off of books who will work closely with the director, a director who knows how to pull a great deal of emotion out of actors and inanimate objects, lead actors who are established without being overly connected to any single work and a producer who will not gripe over individual scenes with zero action taking an excruciatingly long time to film. If all these requirements were met the movie would have a chance of success. The director should avoid being too experimental on this piece because of its delicacy and he must consult with the Cunningham on how to do things while at the same time ignoring him on all of the technical aspects that the author might try to control, Cunningham should be aloud to watch the filming process but to speak only to the director and associate director to keep him from trying to sit in the director's chair on every decision.