Cognitive Schemata and Meaningful Strategies in Adapting Ian McEwan’s Novel, Atonement

Abstract

Adapting literary works for cinematography has not been of much interest until two-three decades ago, mainly because of numerous aporias and biases having to face across time. This paper is considering looking into this subject through the dynamics of the workflow of creation and receiving the product deriving from it with whatever mental activity it involves in order to be meaningful. “Atonement“ based on Ian McEwan’s novel and directed by Joe Wright, offers a good example concerning the filmmaker’s double orientation in the process of artistic production: on the one hand, towards the literary text, attempting to respond to the indications offered by it, on the other hand focused on the audience, attempting to create a similar impact, to guide his way of perceiving the story, to anticipate the viewer’s emotions and the cognitive ways through which he could access a meaning. Throughout its entire unfolding, the film is playing with the spectator, activating a series of cognitive schemata which will subsequently be subject to correction, guiding the activity of imagination in a manner that is analogous with the one operated by the strategies of the literary text.