RONALD HARWOOD/WORDS TAKE FLIGHT

Rewarding to see Harwood collect the BAFTA for Best Adapted Screenplay (THE Diving Bell and the Butterfly) but how does an Englishman come to write the script for a French film?

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Harwood would be the first to admit that his task of making a difficult subject attractive was made considerably easier than it might have been by having a fantastic source book to work from.

It is generally acknowledged that Jean-Dominque Bauby (played by Mathieu Amalric, pictured, before and after his stroke) write a memoir that glows with wit and vivacity, despite his imprisoned state, and those qualities had to show Harwood the way forward.

But even the best book in any language - is a long way from a great screenplay and Harwood had his work cut out for him to make this very difficult, perhaps unfilmable material cinematic.

He had experience on his side, having started with TV work in the very early 60s and breaking through into film in 1970with A Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich (another, far from happy, story of imprisonment).

Bright among the many highlights since Denisovich are the films Cry, The Beloved Country (more tumult), The Pianist (more tumult, more misery) and, most recently, the soon to be released Love In the Time of Cholera, for Mike Newell.

Despite such cinematic success, Harwood likes to think of himself primarily as a theatrical dramatist, and he has a string of successful plays behind him.

Indeed, if he has an original idea that he wants to develop into a work of art, he hones it as a play.

This leaves him free to concentrate on adaptations for film and, one suspects, his experience of theatre – of huge drama in confined spaces – was a boon to adapting The Diving Bell and The Butterfly.

As for the linguist practicalities of the script, it went fairly simply, like this: the French book was translated into English; Harwood wrote the script in English from the English translation; and American director Julian Schnabel had it translated into French.

One has to wonder if there was not a French writer someone who could have handled the job. Main, c’etait res bien fait par Harwood, n’est-ce pas?

Filed February 11, 2008.