From Book to Film - Peter Carey's Bliss (1985)
Similarly, the director precisely and skilfully employed a variety of the viewers' senses in order to reveal the film's key themes subliminally, relationships and character motivations in as little time as possible. While it is significant to note that Lawrence and Carey's script makes no mention of Harry's categorisation of all people into one of three groups (those being Captives, Actors and Those in Charge), the harsh lighting, stark sets and lack of music that form the basis of Harry's urban existence conveys a sense of claustrophobia, of coldness, of solitude. The film's mise-en-scene makes it clear that Harry, Alex Duval (Tim Robertson), David and Honey Barbara are all captives; pawns left to play out the carcinogenic fantasies of the Actors and Those in Charge.
The employment of softer, more natural lighting, soothing music and a desperately romantic voiceover from Harry in the latter stages of the film (and some earlier scenes involving Honey Barbara), Lawrence has eluded to another key theme of the novel - that being the suffocating, carcinogenous reality of modern society, contrasted with the liberating purity of nature. His romantic mise-en-scene also creates a paradox. While both Carey and Lawrence have suggested that people are inevitably punished for leading their comfortable urban lifestyles, Harry himself lured by the thought of a comfortable silk shirt and personal safety, the contrasting lighting between the scenes set in the city and those in the bush indicate the inevitable prior to Harry's realisation. Comfort, for Harry, is in the bush, where he may seek protection under a blanket of foliage.
Lawrence and Carey's adaptation maintains fidelity to the black comic elements of the literary source, while enhancing such through a combination of cinematographer Paul Murphy's highly-charged visual imagery, elements of surrealism and the motif of insects relating to the devolution of 'civil' people to primal beings, controlled by pure emotion instead of imposed norms. Themes of dysfunctional family interactivity, faith, the consumerist corruption of urban existence and creation are played out faithfully in the screenplay. Lawrence has, in his cut version, also utilised the tools of cinema in both implicitly and explicitly constructing a complex band of characters. He has dissected the literary work, extracted significant clues, cut and combined characters (such as the community on Bog Hill Road), and moulded the result around Carey's narrative progression, creating a commentary adaptation that is not only faithful to its source, but faithful to the medium
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