MOVIE: a story or event recorded by a camera as a set of moving images and shown in a theater or on television; a motion picture.

NOVEL: a fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism

Before watching the movie "Possession" I read the novel.

In my opinion, in most cases reading a book is better than watching the film because the reader is free to create her or his own mental pictures and ideas. Moreover books are more detailed, on the contrary, movies cannot faithfully respect books in all their details because they will result boring. From example in the movie some characters of the novel do not even exist.   

Speaking of "Possession" I think that the movie focused the attention mainly on the love stories (Roland and Maud, Ash and LaMotte ) and on the detective aspect of the story; but if you had previously read the novel you can focus the attention on the literary aspect.

The love story between the two researchers, Roland and Maud, is conveyed mainly using dialogues; the director adopts the showing and telling tecnique. 

It is useful because who watches the movie can immediately understand the possible developments in their relationship.

On the contrary the love story between the two Victorian poets, Ash and LaMotte is mainly conveyed by the reading of their corrispondence. As a matter of fact their letters perfectly show their feelings and emotions. An other important way of conveying their love story is the use of flashbacks which directly show the reader what happened.

The past is relevant to understand the present because the present goes together with the past. The past is useful to understand the present and in the novel the present seems to be possessed by the past.

Characters face life and passion in different ways: speaking of Maud she is afraid from suffering, so she tries to avoid what she know can cause pain.

Roland face life and passion following his instinct (for example in the first chapter when he felt the two letters may be important and he stole them ). He is afraid of disappointing the expectation people have of him.

The two Victorian poets seems to be possessed by passion, they are sweep away by it. Also if they try to control their life, at the end they let life to control them.

The message the director wants to convey is that love is a passion that cannot be easily controlled.

There are different messages Antonia Byatt wants to communicate with her novel.

One is what "reading" allows you to understand; for example it makes you know different ways of thinking, different styles and, last but not least, it gives you important pieces of information about who writes.

A second message is that there is not a single truth, but there are different truths according to different points of view (according to Postmodernism).

An other message is that all literary genres have the same dignity, there is not a literary genre that conducts to the truth. As a matter of fact postmodern writer do not think that only the novel can show the truth.

The message of the film and that of the novel are a little different because in the novel you have more literary links and the reader can focus his attention on more reflections.

The two messages are similar in the view of the love as a passion that cannot be controlled.

The debate on truth in the film is strongly  present also in the novel. It is a consequence of Byatt's use of postmodern's thought.

As a matter of fact postmodernists do not think that exists a unique truth, as modernists did.

On the contrary there are different truths, according to the position of he who looks.

This conception comes to the surface in the film thanks to the dialogue between Roland and Maud, who lives in postmodernism.

The idea of postmodernity is conveyed in the film thanks to the juxtaposition between the story of the Victorian poets and the story of the two researchers.

The juxtaposition brings to the surface the differences between the two periods and transmit also the postmodern thought.

PERSONAL EVALUATION OF THE FILM

In my opinion the film respects the basilar concepts and well conveys the most relevant problems and thoughts present also in the novel.

Moreover I think that render the novel a film was very difficult because of the lot of references to other quotations, books and so on.

Actors well communicate character's feelings and emotions, particularly speaking of Maud (Gwynet Paltrow).