A Long Winter: Haigh adapts the meaning, not the map
Andrew Haigh held the rights to Colm Tóibín's short story A Long Winter for about 20 years before he made it. Talking to Gold Derby alongside Tóibín, he said the must-have in adapting it was the story's meaning and themes, while scenes, emphasis and even the location could change. Tóibín, for his part, said he gave Haigh no notes at all on the screenplay.
Haigh's rule is a useful one for any adaptation: you work out that the film is a separate entity, add the scenes it needs, drop what only works on the page, and keep asking what the story is saying. Tóibín said that after watching it he thought, this is the story, this is the book, even with the location moved.
The other lesson is about where change lives on the page. Haigh said the big scenes of change you might see in other films are not in the script, so Fred Hechinger had to find Mike's shift in smaller, subtler ways. Writing the absence of a turning point is a choice, and it hands the arc to performance, camera and edit.
Go deeper on Kingdom of Dreams
- → EP 219: James V. Hart on writing Hook
- → EP 266: Gary Goldman on writing Total Recall
- → EP 335: Pietro Scalia on editing Whalefall
We have not sat with Andrew Haigh yet. Go deeper with writers who reshaped source material, and an editor who cut a novel adaptation down to its core.
Headline inspired by reporting at Gold Derby (Debra Birnbaum interviewing Andrew Haigh and Colm Tóibín). Full article remains on their site; this page is our craft lens and episode guide. Read the source at Gold Derby ↗