THE HOURS: COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU!!!

Turning the novel, The Hours, into a movie would be extremely complex and difficult. How do you turn a novel that uses so much detail into movie format? In the novel most of the text is the characters thought. The first question I would have to ask myself would be, "How can I effectively portray to the audience what the characters are thinking?" The second question I would ask myself would be, "What actresses must I use to bring out the true essence of Clarissa Dalloway, Virginia Woolf and Laura Brown?" Another question would be, "Do I need to alter parts of the novel to make it appeal to a broader audience?"


Since most of the text is the characters thoughts, I would use their voices as background to coney those thoughts. Whenever it becomes essential for the audience to know what the character is thinking, the characters voice in the background will be used. This technique would have to be done in first person only. The characters own voices commentating their thoughts would be more effective than someone else commentating because the audience would gain a clearer view of who the characters are on the inside.

The actresses I would choose to play the women, would have to be capable of expressing subtle emotion on the outside but yet be able to let the audience know that something stronger, more intense is going on inside. To the outside world the women try to appear normal; they try to hide their depression and unhappiness for the sake of the people around them. However, when the characters reveal their thoughts you gain a true sense of how intensely unhappy they are. Therefore the actresses have to be appear to the audience as "normal", but also let them know that their hidden depression is slowly eating them up. The voice commentary would be a extremely useful in evoking this kind of emotion. The audience would see the women as normal, but when they commented on their lives they would realize how truly unstable the women are.

I see the novel appealing to all women, especially middle aged women because they tend to look back on their lives and think "what if?" They also tend to have insecurities about getting older and question if they are truly satisfied with their lives. The women in the book are dealing with some of the same issues that women everywhere deal with and therefore the book appeals to them. Honestly I do not think I would try to alter the movie version of the novel to make it appeal to a broader audience. I think that the audience that the novel appeals to is the same audience I would make the movie appeal to. Although I would imagine that not only women, but some men would find the movie interesting without directly trying to appeal to them. This is because it is a universal truth that everyone, not only women, have insecurities, are depressed at times, and wonder what their lives could have been.