No filmmaker and no film responds immediately to reality itself, or to its own inner vision.

Every representational film adapts a prior conception. Indeed the very term representation suggests the existence if a model. Adaptation delimits representation by insisting on the cultural status of the model, on its existence in the mode of the text or the already textualized. In the case of those texts explicitly termed adaptations, the cultural model which the cinema represents is already treasured as a representation in another sign system. Adaptation is both leap and a process. There are several possible modes of relation between the film and text. These modes can be reduced into three: borrowing, intersection, and fidelity of transformation. Borrowing is the most frequent mode of adaptation. In this case that artist is using a novels material or ideas and form. In this situation the adapter is hoping to gain credibility for his work with the prestige of a known title/work. But at the same time, the adapter wants this too work more as a way to get others to view his work, but give his work its own acclaim and appreciation (30). So Andrew urges that if one is to study this particular adaptation mode they should look for the source of power in the original, and then look to see how the adapter made use of that source in the adaptation.

The next mode is intersecting. In this adaptation mode the uniqueness of the original text is preserved to such an extent that it is intentionally left assimilated in adaptation (30). The film in this case is meant to serve as a refraction of the original, which is the novel (31). This is what most people in the general public expect an adaptation film to be, and it is why many are disappointed with a film adaptation because as Andrew points out, borrowing mode of adaptation is much more common than intersecting. The final mode of adaptation is fidelity and transformation. This is a difficult method of adaptation for many people to accept because it allows the widest amount of interpretation by the adapter. This mode demands the reproduction of something essential about the original text that is reproduced in the film (32). It has only to capture the spirit of the original, but to say only is an understatement because it can be a very difficult task. In fact, Andrew points out that most critics argue that capturing this spirit is basically impossible because the mediums (film and text) are so different (32).