The filmmaker as adaptor: Fred Schepisi takes on Patrick White in 'The eye of the storm'

It needs real nerve to come out of a film based on a famous novel and declare unreservedly that you enjoyed the film much more than the book. I mean, books came first. Literature, as a study, preceded film by decades. Adaptation of novels into film brings out the cultural cowardice in so many of us. Could you imagine anyone daring to 'prefer' a film version of, say, Charles Dickens' 'Great expectations' or Henry James' 'The portrait of a lady' to their illustrious predecessors? Well, courageously, that is what I'm about to do.