What distinguishes literature from cinema?

Rating: 7/10 (24 June 2020)

What distinguishes literature from cinema? Among other things, one distinction (as with theatre) is the necessity of performance. What is written must be enacted. It is for this reason that a narrative like "Stranger Than Fiction" is best realized in a theatrical or cinematic context.
Arguably, the meta-narrative in a cinematic context would have been better served if the author (played by Emma Thompson) had been a screenwriter (at the risk of eliciting unwanted comparisons with "Adaptation").