Theory of film : the redemption of physical reality (1960)

13 Interlude: Film and Novel SIMILARITIES Like Elm, the novel tends to render life in its fullness Great novels, such as Madame Bovary, War and Peace, and Remembrance of Things Past, cover wide expanses of reality. They aim, or seem to aim, at unfolding life on a scale which exceeds their intrigue proper. So does film. This glaring similarity between the two media is corroborated by the fact that in the novel too the story turns out to be a double-edged proposition. No doubt it is indispensable for the novel, if only as a thread through the maze of life. Yet much as it is needed, it threatens to substitute an ordered sequence of events for life's unfathomable contingencies and thus to blur, in E. M. Forster's words, the "finer growths"1 it is supposed to bring out. "Oh, dear, yes— the novel tells a story," says Forster, calling the latter a "low atavistic form."2 Accordingly, in creating a dramatic intrigue the novelist, as well as the film maker, is faced with the difficulty of reconciling two divergent, if not opposite, requirements. In defining them, I might as well continue to follow Forster, who, from his own practice in the field, is particularly sensitive to the conflicting tasks involved in novel writing. First, since the novelist cannot do without a story, he must in the interest of its significance "leave no loose ends" in narrating it. "Every action or word ought to count; it ought to be economical and spare."3 Second, since a sustained pursuit of these compositional efforts would bring the novel dangerously close to the theatrical story the novelist is simultaneously obliged to move in the reverse direction also. He must break away from the story. He must 232