Snow Falling on Cedars: The Shooting Script

Everyone will acknowledge that to adapt a novel for the screen always amounts to a difficult - and in many cases a downright impossible - undertaking. This is not any different with "Snow Falling on Cedars", a novel that is remarkable for its use of different time levels as well as an array of characters complex enough to scare off most scriptwriters. Given the difficulties Ron Bass and Scott Hicks must have faced while adapting the novel, I am all the more pleased with the result of their work. All in all it is fair to say that they have succeeded in writing a script that never runs the risk of cutting the novel's central thread and that pays attention to a great many of the book's intricate details. One drop of bitterness, however, is exactly the use of the aforementioned time levels - or "time frames", as Hicks calls them in his commentary that closes the script - as their complex arrangement both threatens the smooth evolving of the story and tends to confuse those readers not familiar with the novel. But then this may have to do more with the general problems associated with bringing a novel to the screen than with Bass' and Hicks' qualities as scriptwriters, and I would still recommend this script to anyone interested in getting to know more about the filming of "Snow Falling on Cedars" and about adapting a novel for the screen in general.