Angst-pushers & Austenites

That movies can accomplish certain narrative chores more smoothly than novels is a truism, but when we begin looking at specific moments from specific films, the apparently slight advantage in facility takes on the character of a difference in kind. Conrad in The Secret Agent, preparing the murder of Mr. Verloc, had to lay out the right weapon pages in advance, and view it with the eye of the murderer without yet urging it forcibly on the reader, so that the crime would still come across as a shock. Hitchcock, photographing the same scene, had Sylvia Sidney glance over at the knife for a split second, uncomfortably, then showed the silver instrument glinting under the light, and performed in a few smart instants an operation tha...