Adapting novels for the screen

In The L.A. Times, Lewis Beale talks to writers about the challenge of adapting novels into screenplays.

"Blindness," Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago's 1997 allegorical novel about an epidemic of sightlessness that threatens to destroy society, is told in a stream-of-consciousness style that reads like a fever dream. Not exactly " Harry Potter," straight-to-the-big-screen material.

Yet, Don McKellar saw in it a screenplay and Fernando Meirelles ("City of God") saw in that screenplay a film he could direct. And the fact that "Blindness" is now multiplex fodder, with the film opening Friday, is a testament to the willingness of moviemakers to tackle -- sometimes against great odds -- some of the toughest literary works.

Blindess trailer



Blindness, directed by Fernando Meirelles, opens in the UK later this year.