SOURCE: Geduld, Harry M. “Literature into Film: ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’.” Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature, no. 27 (1978): 56-8.

In the following essay, Geduld considers the nature and problems of film adaptation through a study of Robert Enrico's La Riviere du hibou, a film adapted from Bierce's “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”

The workshop on literature into film was prefaced by a screening of Robert Enrico's 1964 film adaptation of Ambrose Bierce's short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Separately, the story and the film version are usually viewed as one or more of the following: an anti-war statement; an expose of the horrors of capital punishment; a study of the complex relationships of life and death, hope and disillusionment, illusion and reality. For the purposes of the workshop, however, the film and its source provided a focus for a general consideration of the nature...