Adaptation

A source material — a novel, play, comic, true event — lands on the desk, and the pressure begins: How much of it is preserved, what has to go, and above all: How do you tell it visually? That is adaptation. Not transcribing dialogue, but the fundamental transformation of a story into cinematic thinking. The mistake many make is to photograph the source material instead of adapting it. This leads to sluggish, uncinematic material that does justice neither to literature nor to cinema.

In practice, you need the courage to make a statement: What is the dramatic core that must be preserved? A 500-page novel cannot simply be squeezed into 100 minutes — you have to combine characters, cut plotlines, sometimes even shift the tone. This doesn't mean damaging the source, but respecting it by translating its inner logic into the medium of film. A monologue works as an inner voice, not as spoken text. A flashback in the novel becomes a montage of images. The metaphorical density of a poem can be condensed through camera, sound, and editing — often more powerfully than in the original.

Typical pitfalls: Treating adaptation as a mandatory task. Clinging too tightly to the name to ensure licensing security, but forgetting the film itself in the process. Or — the opposite — adapting so freely that the source material is merely an alibi. The most difficult moment always comes at the screenwriting stage: You sit there, have three versions, and realize: This doesn't work cinematically. Then you need the clarity to rewrite or even invent scenes that never existed in the source material because they are necessary for the cinematic narrative.

Good adaptations arise when the crew (producer, director, screenwriter) understands that they are not art custodians, but craftsmen of a new art form. Fidelity to the source material is not a mark of quality — the result is. Sometimes a free adaptation is more dignified than a slavish remake that doesn't dare to breathe.