Foenkinose: Movie adaptations often help books become known

Foenkinose, whose novels have appeared in over 40 languages, was joined by Syrian writer and journalist Dr Mania Suwaid in an hour-long panel discussion moderated by writer Mutaz Quteineh as the trio dived deep into the realms of writing for cinema and books.  

“When I am working on a novel, I am obsessed by the characters but when I write a story for a movie, I look at how to keep the action going. Writing is more personal, deeper but making a movie is about telling a story and keeping the flow alive. If literature relies on language, imagery, and the reader's imagination to convey its message, then cinema utilises visuals, sound, editing, and performance to create a cinematic experience of storytelling,” said Foenkinose who has written 19 books and directed five movies in a career spanning over two decades.

“The movie industry always tries to find a book. Look at Stanley Kubrick. Almost all his movies are based on a book. Most of them, not so famous. Even Lolita was at the beginning of its own success curve when it was adapted. Adaptations [often] help books become known,” the Parisian said while talking about how he adapted his own best-selling French novel La délicatesse (Delicacy) into a film of the same name in 2011 with leading French actress Audrey Tautou as the main character. “When you make adaptations of famous books, people compare. It’s always a bad situation [to be in].”

“When I adapted the delicacy, people asked me why I didn’t make it look like my book. Each individual reads a book and visualises it as his or her own movie. And that’s why my advice is to adapt works of writers who are dead and books that are relatively unknown. It just becomes easier for the filmmaker,” he said while elaborating on successful movie adaptations and explaining why he would adapt Egyptian-born French writer Albert Cossery’s works.

“Each innovative work is separate. We can’t conclusively say which is better and, at the end of the day, It is the audience, or the reader, as the case may be, that eventually judges,” said Dr Suwaid, who holds a PhD in Journalism from the American University in London for her thesis on crisis Journalism and has published seven books so far. 

“Sometimes cinemas enhance a book but for me personally, books are a more intimate affair. It establishes a direct connection with the author because it is an individual piece of work compared to cinema which is a collective work of art encompassing several techniques that are very different,” she said while explaining why Les Misérables, the French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862 and later popularised through numerous adaptations for film, television and the stage, including a musical and a 2012 epic period musical film starring an ensemble cast led by Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Eddie Redmayne, Amanda Seyfried, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sacha Baron Cohen, remains her all-time favourite adaptation.