Capitalizing on the cinematic techniques employed by Boll in his fiction, the Czechoslovakian film director Vojtech Jasney collaborated with British cameraman Walter Lassally to adapt The Clown to the screen. Released in West Germany in 1975, Ansichten eines Clowns attempted to capture the satirical elements of the novel in a highly stylized artistic statement. Far more successful as a commercial commodity, however, was the film version of The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1976), released first in West Germany and later in the United States. Written and directed by frequent collaborators Volker Schlondorff and his wife Margarethe von Trotta, the film is largely a faithful adaptation of Boll's novel as well as an impressive visual experience. Effectively compensating for the loss of the novel's narrator by fusing the action of the film with emotional intensity, Schlondorff and von Trotta shifted the creative focus from social and political thematic concerns to...