Away from her? Sarah Polley's screen adaptation of Alice Munro's"the bear came over the mountain

Abstract

Away from Her (2006), Sarah Polley's debut as director and screenwriter, based on Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro's "The Bear Came Over the Mountain," stands out as a paradigmatic case of artistic adaptation. In the process of adapting the story to the screen, this Canadian actress-turned-filmmaker manages to use innovative cinematic techniques, such as the 'space-off' and 'reversal,' to convey her feminist interpretation of Munro's cryptic text. Though her scripted dialogue shows a high degree of similarity to Munro's text, Polley avoids mimicry and successfully reproduces the core of the story in the new medium. It is as if she knew beforehand that if she wants to get closer to an artistic adaptation of a text by one of Canada's most renowned writers, she must remain somehow Away from Her.