While many critics may argue there is a hierarchical relationship in favour of books over film (or vice versa), or others might disagree that there is any relationship at all, there also exists another perspective on the connection between the two mediums.

Mark Axelrod argues, "the evolution of fiction has been a dynamic process in form as well as in content" (207). As such the question of the relationship between literature and film should not be based solely on the idea of equivalency (or lack thereof) of forms, but rather in terms of content. Evaluations should look at "how the story is told and with what efficacy the characters are realistically presented" (Axelrod, 201). The connection between mediums would therefore lie in the "traditional notion of story telling"; what tends to get adapted from novels to film is the "linear narrative within the text" (Axelrod, 205). In this sense, a relationship exists within the fact that both film and literature are "narrative arts" in which "both [sign] systems may construct narratives which are indeed commensurable" (Andrew, 1980, 13). With the continuing popularity of adapting literature to film, one would seem hard pressed to deny that the two mediums do share the common goal of "telling a story" (Rifkin, 2).

In terms of semiotics, Joy Boyum agrees that while film and words may have different sign systems, both have connotations, associations, and denotations, and have "the same capacity to create characters, and actions" which " ultimately then bring us into fictional worlds" (30). This relationship would seem to point out that an adaptation could indeed be successful, as a narrative can be retold, regardless of the discourse used to present it. Unlike previous attempts to understand the relationship between film and literature as hierarchical, this approach conceives a dialectical association between the texts and evaluations can be based on the successful development of narrative elements (see Neo-Aristotelian Theory