Fidelity critics and counter arguments with examples

In today’s world films are one of the most important tools of communication, entertainment and mass media. Motion pictures have had a substantial impact on the arts, technology and politics.
But, when it comes to adaptations, this belief is not considered to be good enough for the fidelity critics when compared to a book or a novel. Sarah Cardwell argues that the comparative study of literary work and screen adaptation leads to fidelity criticism (52). However, McFarlane admits that a study of screen adaptations should not be limited to a narrow comparison of the screen adaptation and single source text, and should take into account other intertextual influences (Novel to Film 21). Fidelity critics ignore reinterpretation of text and do not keep in mind the vision the director has of the text.


Images influence the state of mind of the audience a great deal. It is the art of the filmmakers that they create such an arrangement of images that it touches the viewer. Carl Theodor Dreyer (1991, p.128) said ‘that the film first and foremost is a visual art, first and foremost directs itself to the eye, and that the picture far, far more easily than the spoken word penetrates deeply into the spectator’s consciousness’. Adaptations are no less than its so-called ‘original text’. It has its own way of interacting with the audience. One such example is ‘The Lord of The Rings’. Younger generation never read the novel, until the movies came out. The sale of the novels went up after the release of the films.

There has been estimation that the proportion of American films that are based on novels is 30 per cent. Approximately 80 per cent of the best selling novels each year are turned into film adaptations. More than three quarters of the Academy Awards "best picture" have gone to adaptations.

Iconography of the Red Dress

Images can have great emotional impact on the audiences than literary texts. One such example is the iconography of the Red Dress in the movie Schindler’s List, which is an adaptation of the novel Schindler’s Ark. In the final scenes of Schindler’s List, Ben Kingsley says “One who saves the life, saves thousands”. Viewers come to witness the true story of one man Oskar Schindler, who dashes over 1,100 Jewish souls. His story survives one of the darkest times in history. Director, Steven Spielberg, has given the audience an extremely powerful presentation of the Holocaust. Among the many masterful scenes in the film, one scene in particular is vital to the true meaning behind the character of Oskar Schindler: The destruction of Cracow’s Jewish ghetto, where the viewer’s attention is drawn to a little girl in red coat. This scene reveals the character and theme brought forth through a number of cinematic techniques such as use of color, camera movements and sound. Such a depiction is hard to extract while reading a written text.

adaptations receiving critical acclaim

There might have been adaptations that couldn’t be as successful as the novels but that does not make the Fidelity Critics right in saying that all adaptations are doomed to failure. Virginia Woolf even likened adaptation to rape!

There are many adaptations that have received the critic’s awards. In the year 2009 four adaptations of the books have received five major awards at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, like ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ (based on a book by Roald Dhal with the same title) took the best animated film award. Meryl Streep won the best actress for ‘Julie and Julia’ (based on Julie Powell’s ‘Memoir’), Mo’ Nique won the best supporting actress for ‘Precious’ (based on ‘Push’ by Sapphire) and finally George Clooney won the best actor for ‘Up in the Air’ (based on Walter Kirn’s novel)



Novel by Charles Dickens 'A Christmas Carol' was put on the big screen in 1951 by the same title, directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, starring Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge, is picked up as the best film adaptations of all times by the A.O Scott, New York Times.