Narrative Difference Between "The Bear Came Over The Mountain" And Its Adapted Film

Alice Munro(1931-)is a world-famous master of short story.She was the first Canadian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature(2013).Her classic fiction “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”(1999)was adapted into the film Away From Her in 2006 which has won many awards and nominations in film industry.Fiction and film are both narrative texts with distinctive features.Adapting a fiction into a film is a transformation between the art of narrative.Based on the previous studies,the thesis uses Gérard Genette’s narrative theory to study the fiction and its adapted film from the aspects of narrative content and narrative skills.A fiction with a compact structure,a strong sense of image and touching emotion is the guarantee for the success of its adapted film.The fiction “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” is abundant in content and diverse in theme,providing excellent material for the adaptation.In addition,the director’s understanding of the work and the use of filming techniques are keys to the film’s success.The director of the film Away From Her aims to highlight the companionship and persistence of the elderly which is a specific and emotional perspective that well caters to general appreciation.In the limited length of a film,the director focuses on the theme and adapts the narrative content such as title and plot.Combining with adapted narrative content,the director makes full use of film’s intuitive feature and ingenious filming techniques.Based on loyalty of the original work,the art of recreation is unfolded.It should be noted that although the adapted film may cater audiences’ aesthetic expectations and follow the trend of times,it can’t surpass the original work in ideological level.In the meantime,the popularity of the film and audio-visual enjoyment it brings to the audience are also incomparable by the fiction.