Moststage-to-film adaptations must confront the charge of being "stagy".Many successful attempts have been made to "open up" stageplays to show things that could not possibly be done in the theatre.Many critics claim to notice the origins of stage-to-film adaptationswhen the characters speak. A play depends mostly on dialogue, sothere is supposedly more of it in a play than in a film, and more ofa tendency for the characters to make long speeches. Writers,directors and critics often claim that film makes more use of short,abrupt sentences, realistic ways of speaking and physical action thanthe stage does.

Onsome occasions, playwrights re-write their stage dramas for thescreen, as Peter Shaffer did for Amadeus (1984). Shaffer'sscreenplay made much use of camera movements and scenery that couldonly be seen in the film. Shaffer even added several scenes to takeadvantage of the medium. The scene in which the ill Mozart dictateshis Requiem Mass to Salieri, while his imagined music is heard on thesoundtrack, could only have been done on film. In other cases, suchas Cabaret (1972), the original stage dialogue is completelydiscarded and an entirely new script is written for thefilm version, even if the basic plot of the play is still followed.