After watching “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” and reading the short story which it is based off, I will have to say like most books to films, they leave out a lot of the character development. It is much more challenging to tell a story about who a character is with frames and clips rather than words.
I prefer books to this nature because there is so much more to learn about the characters, intentions, perceptions, and imaginations. It’s much more insightful.
For example, little details like how his hair was done for the film was different than what the story suggested. The soldiers were not perched on stumps, they were standing on the ground across the bank from the bridge. The story also spends more time showing his movements trying to escape than the book’s emphasis on the imagination and how at ease he was.
The biggest detail for me, between the book and the movie, is the story has a way of showing the great calmness he was feeling in moments of his imagination. Such as taking in the sounds, climate, and wildlife before him despite his evident future coming to an end. The book does such a fantastic job of captivating the perspective of the imagination surrounding the situation despite the outcome.
The film was displayed in a much more straightforward way. They kept with the idea of his watch, which distracted him from his calm thoughts, rather in the ebook, his watch was not taken away from him.
The film left out the large part where Farquhar and his wife were approached by a soldier who was a federal scout. The significance of this is important because it shows a great misguided intent to hang this innocent man.
Techniques like editing and shot composition were used very well in this film to help convey to the viewer that this man was using his imagination in an attempt to put himself into a better, more peaceful, joyful place than the current situation he was facing – being hung to death.
They used pacing and storytelling in a very successful way to help see the imagination, thoughts, actions, and reality all be their own emotions.