Atwood adaptation proved “nerve-wracking’ for Baichwal

Source: @chronicalherald

#adaptation #screenwriting #film

“Seasoned documentary filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal says she had a quick answer when asked if she would adapt a Margaret Atwood book for the big screen: No.

Despite being a longtime fan of the legendary novelist, Baichwal says she couldn’t imagine how to wrestle Atwood’s non-fiction Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth into a film when approached by a National Film Board of Canada producer.

Part of the problem, she admits, was that she hadn’t read the collection of essays and assumed it was all about the financial collapse.

She soon learned it was far from that, delving instead into a broad rumination on the concept of debt itself and the various ways in which notions of obligation and reward play out in history, literature, law and religion.

“Of course I should have known — because I’ve read everything Atwood has ever written — that it would not be what I expected,” Baichwal says in a recent interview at a Toronto hotel…..”