If you have ever seen cast away, on the island there are several small "scenes" of him with small time skips in between. How would someone effectively compress a series of events in a similar fashion in writing? I would imagine having " X time later" every few paragraphs would be repetitive or clunky.
I think the first problem is trying to convey something on the screen onto paper. Usually the two do not work harmoniously. In answer to your question though, I would first inform the reader of the passage of time. "Over the next few months, many things happened." Followed by the events in question. "The following january this happened. Several weeks later, this happened. It was March when he began to experience X. As summer approached, blah blah." You get the idea. There are many ways to express time passing.
I agree with AlcoholicWolf. It's hard to establish an idea of 'edits' showing time change in a novel. This would be more appropriate for a few pages or paragraphs of exposition that cover the sense that time has/is passing and the changes occurring during that time change.
I agree, it's difficult, and often not especially effective, to try and use one medium's technique in another. The kinds of scenes you're referring to in the film (I've seen it, and I know what you mean) are to make up for what can be done in the written word but not in film. How, exactly, you do it in your writing depends a lot on the kind of story you are writing, how compressed or expansive the time frame (and time skips) depicted might be, and how important it is to show the specific amounts of time that have passed. Some works - like The Hunt For Red October - have dates and times as chapter headings. You can also depict time passages by things like seasonal changes or the passage from daytime to night.
