Reference Sources for Adaptation Studies
- Film Scripts OnlineProvides authorized versions of copyrighted screenplays. Compare the writer’s vision with the producer’s and director’s interpretations from page to screen.
Books on Adaptation
Adaptations: From Text to Screen, Screen to Text by
Adaptations considers the theoretical and practical difficulties surrounding the translation of a text into film, and the reverse process; the novelisation of films. Through three sets of case studies, the contributors examine the key debates surrounding adaptations: whether screen versions of literary classics can be faithful to the text; if something as capsulated as Jane Austens irony can even be captured on film; whether costume dramas always of their own time and do adaptations remake their parent text to reflect contemporary ideas and concerns. Tracing the complex alterations which texts experience between different media, Adaptations is a unique exploration of the relationship between text and film.
ISBN: 0415167388Publication Date: 1999-08-03
A Theory of Adaptation by
Renowned literary scholar Linda Hutcheon explores the ubiquity of adaptations in all their various media incarnations and challenges their constant critical denigration. Adaptation, Hutcheon argues, has always been a central mode of the story-telling imagination and deserves to be studied in all its breadth and range as both a process (of creation and reception) and a product unto its own. Persuasive and illuminating, ATheory of Adaptationis a bold rethinking of how adaptation works across all media and genres that may put an end to the age-old question of whether the book was better than the movie, or the opera, or the theme park.
ISBN: 0415967945Publication Date: 2006-06-13
Adaptations As Imitations: Films from Novels by
Adaptations as Imitations returns to the issue of adapting novels to the screen to examine previous commentary and to put forth another theoretical framework. As opposed to the deductive frameworks that rule out what is common practice, this new framework would allow for a more inductive approach to the films.
ISBN: 0874136334Publication Date: 1997-08-01
Authorship in Film Adaptation by
Authoring a film adaptation of a literary source not only requires a media conversion but also a transformation as a result of the differing dramatic demands of cinema. The most critical central step in this transformation of a literary source to the screen is the writing of the screenplay. The screenplay usually serves to recruit producers, director, and actors; to attract capital investment; and to give focus to the conception and production of the film project. Often undergoing multiple revisions prior to production, the screenplay represents the crucial decisions of writer and director that will determine how and to what end the film will imitate or depart from its original source. Authorship in Film Adaptation is an accessible, provocative text that opens up new areas of discussion on the central process of adaptation surrounding the screenplay and screenwriter-director collaboration. In contrast to narrow binary comparisons of literary source text and film, the twelve essays in this collection also give attention to the underappreciated role of the screenplay and film pre-production that can signal the primary intention for a film. Divided into four parts, this collection looks first at the role of Hollywood's activist producers and major auteurs such as Hitchcock and Kubrick as they worked with screenwriters to formulate their audio-visual goals. The second part offers case studies of Devil in a Blue Dress and The Sweet Hereafter, for which the directors wrote their own adapted screenplays. Considering the variety of writer-director working relationships that are possible, Part III focuses on adaptations that alter genre, time, and place, and Part IV investigates adaptations that alter stories of romance, sexuality, and ethnicity.
ISBN: 9780292718531Publication Date: 2008-07-01
The Pedagogy of Adaptation by
From All Quiet on the Western Front and Gone with the Wind to No Country for Old Men and Slumdog Millionaire, many of the most memorable films have been adapted from other sources. Although courses on film studies are taught throughout the world, The Pedagogy of Adaptation makes a strong case for treating adaptation studies as a separate discipline. What makes this book unique is its assertion that adaptation is above all a creative process and not simply a slavish imitation or reproduction of an "original."
ISBN: 9780810872967Publication Date: 2010-02-23
The Routledge Companion to Adaptation by
The Routledge Companion to Adaptation offers a broad range of scholarship from this growing, interdisciplinary field. With a basis in source-oriented studies, such as novel-to-stage and stage-to-film adaptations, this volume also seeks to highlight the new and innovative aspects of adaptation studies, ranging from theatre and dance to radio, television and new media. It is divided into five sections: Mapping, which presents a variety of perspectives on the scope and development of adaptation studies; Historiography, which investigates the ways in which adaptation engages with - and disrupts - history; Identity, which considers texts and practices in adaptation as sites of multiple and fluid identity formations; Reception, which examines the role played by an audience, considering the unpredictable relationships between adaptations and those who experience them; Technology, which focuses on the effects of ongoing technological advances and shifts on specific adaptations, and on the wider field of adaptation. An emphasis on adaptation-as-practice establishes methods of investigation that move beyond a purely comparative case study model. The Routledge Companion to Adaptation celebrates the complexity and diversity of adaptation studies, mapping the field across genres and disciplines.
ISBN: 9781315690254Publication Date: 2018-04-17
Mystery Classics on Film by
Watching the movie or television version of a classic mystery story is often a frustrating experience for the reader because so many changes are often made by the filmmakers, not all of them satisfying. In Mystery Classics on Film, the author takes a look at the screen versions of 65 famous mysteries, showing where the filmmakers either helped or seriously failed the telling of the story. The author is an experienced critic of both movies and television and his insight also includes his private talks with several famous mystery writers who comment on how filmmakers treated their work. Because so many of these books and films are widely-known, you don't have to be a mystery fanatic to enjoy reading about this often fascinating process of turning a book into a film.
ISBN: 1476666857Publication Date: 2017-01-30
Screen Adaptation by
Adaptation studies has historically been neglected in both the English and Film Studies curricula. Reflecting on this, Screen Adaptation celebrates its emergence in the late 20th and 21st centuries and explores the varieties of methodologies and debates within the field. Drawing on approaches from genre studies to transtexuality to cultural materialism, the book examines adaptations of both popular and canonical writers, including William Shakespeare, Jane Austen and J.K.Rowling. Original and provocative, this book will spark new thinking and research in the field of adaptation studies. Mapping the way in which this exciting field has emerged and shifted over the last two decades, the book is also essential reading for students of English Literature and Film.
ISBN: 9781403985491Publication Date: 2010-08-03
The Comic Book Film Adaptation by
In the summer of 2000 X-Men surpassed all box office expectations and ushered in an era of unprecedented production of comic book film adaptations. This trend, now in its second decade, has blossomed into Hollywood's leading genre. From superheroes to Spartan warriors, The Comic Book Film Adaptation offers the first dedicated study to examine how comic books moved from the fringes of popular culture to the center of mainstream film production. Through in-depth analysis, industry interviews, and audience research, this book charts the cause-and-effect of this influential trend. It considers the cultural traumas, business demands, and digital possibilities that Hollywood faced at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The industry managed to meet these challenges by exploiting comics and their existing audiences. However, studios were caught off-guard when these comic book fans, empowered by digital media, began to influence the success of these adaptations. Nonetheless, filmmakers soon developed strategies to take advantage of this intense fanbase, while codifying the trend into a more lucrative genre, the comic book movie, which appealed to an even wider audience. Central to this vibrant trend is a comic aesthetic in which filmmakers utilize digital filmmaking technologies to engage with the language and conventions of comics like never before. The Comic Book Film Adaptation explores this unique moment in which cinema is stimulated, challenged, and enriched by the once-dismissed medium of comics.
ISBN: 9781628462036Publication Date: 2015-03-30
Shakespeare and Film
The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film by
Film adaptations of Shakespeare's plays are increasingly popular and now figure prominently in the study of his work and its reception. This Companion is a lively collection of critical and historical essays on the films adapted from, and inspired by, Shakespeare's plays. Chapters have been revised and updated from the first edition to include the most recent films and scholarship. An international team of leading scholars discuss Shakespearean films from a variety of perspectives: as works of art in their own right; as products of the international movie industry; and as the work of particular directors from Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles to Franco Zeffirelli and Kenneth Branagh. They also consider specific issues such as the portrayal of Shakespeare's women and the supernatural. The emphasis is on feature films for cinema, rather than television, with strong coverage of Hamlet, Richard III, Macbeth, King Lear and Romeo and Juliet.
ISBN: 9780521685016Publication Date: 2007-03-29
The Reel Shakespeare by
This collection models an approach to Shakespeare and cinema that is concerned with the 'other' side of Shakespeare's Hollywood celebrity, taking the reader on a practical and theoretical tour through important, non-mainstream films and the oppositional messages they convey. The collection includes essays on early silent adaptations of Hamlet, Greenway's Prospero's Books, Godard's King Lear, Hall's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Taymor's Titus, Polanski's Macbeth, Welles' Chimes at Midnight, I., and Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho
ISBN: 9781611472325Publication Date: 2002-10-01
Shakespeare and World Cinema by
Shakespeare and World Cinema radically re-imagines the field of Shakespeare on film, drawing on a wealth of examples from Africa, the Arctic, Brazil, China, France, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Tibet, Venezuela, Yemen and elsewhere. Mark Thornton Burnett explores the contemporary significance of Shakespeare cinema outside the Hollywood mainstream for the first time, arguing that these adaptations are an essential part of the story of Shakespearean performance and reception. The book reveals in unique detail the scope, inventiveness and vitality of over seventy films that have undeservedly slipped beneath the radar of critical attention and also discusses regional Shakespeare cinema in Latin America and Asia. Utilising original interviews with filmmakers throughout, it introduces new auteurs, analyses multiple adaptations of plays such as Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet and pioneers fresh methodologies for understanding the role that Shakespeare continues to play in the international marketplace.
ISBN: 9781107003316Publication Date: 2012-10-04
100 Shakespeare Films by
From Oscar-winning British classics to Hollywood musicals and Westerns, from Soviet epics to Bollywood thrillers, Shakespeare has inspired an almost infinite variety of films. Directors as diverse as Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Franco Zeffirelli, Kenneth Branagh, Baz Luhrmann and Julie Taymor have transferred Shakespeare's plays from stage to screen with unforgettable results. Spanning a century of cinema, from a silent short of 'The Tempest' (1907) to Kenneth Branagh's 'As You Like It' (2006), Daniel Rosenthal's up-to-date selection takes in the most important, inventive and unusual Shakespeare films ever made. Half are British and American productions that retain Shakespeare's language, including key works such as Olivier's 'Henry V' and 'Hamlet', Welles' 'Othello' and 'Chimes at Midnight', Branagh's 'Henry V' and 'Hamlet', Luhrmann's 'Romeo + Juliet' and Taymor's 'Titus'. Alongside these original-text films are more than 30 genre adaptations: titles that aim for a wider audience by using modernized dialogue and settings and customizing Shakespeare's plots and characters, transforming 'Macbeth' into a pistol-packing gangster ('Joe Macbeth' and 'Maqbool') or reimagining 'Othello' as a jazz musician ('All Night Long'). There are Shakesepeare-based Westerns ('Broken Lance', 'King of Texas'), musicals ('West Side Story', 'Kiss Me Kate'), high-school comedies ('10 Things I Hate About You', 'She's the Man'), even a sci-fi adventure ('Forbidden Planet'). There are also films dominated by the performance of a Shakespearean play ('In the Bleak Midwinter', 'Shakespeare in Love'). Rosenthal emphasises the global nature of Shakespearean cinema, with entries on more than 20 foreign-language titles, including Kurosawa's 'Throne of Blood and Ran', Grigori Kozintsev's 'Russian Hamlet' and 'King Lear', and little-known features from as far afield as 'Madagascar' and 'Venezuela', some never released in Britain or the US. He considers the films' production and box-office history and examines the film-makers' key interpretive decisions in comparison to their Shakespearean sources, focusing on cinematography, landscape, music, performance, production design, textual alterations and omissions. As cinema plays an increasingly important role in the study of Shakespeare at schools and universities, this is a wide-ranging, entertaining and accessible guide for Shakespeare teachers, students and enthusiasts.
ISBN: 9781844571703Publication Date: 2007-06-13
Almost Shakespeare by
In the past two decades, Othello has tried out for the basketball team, Macbeth has taken over a fast food joint, and King Lear has moved to an lowa farm - Shakespeare is everywhere in popular culture. This collection of essays addresses the use of Shakespearean narratives, themes, imagery, and characterizations in non-Shakespearian cinema. The essays explore how Shakespeare and his work are manipulated within the popular media and explore topics such as racism, jealousy, misogyny and nationality. The question of whether a contemporary production is influenced by Shakespeare or by an earlier piece that influenced Shakespeare is also addressed. The submissions concentrate on film and television programs that are adaptations of Shakespearean plays, including My Own Private Idaho, CSI-Miami, A Thousand Acres, Prospero's Books, O, 10 Things I Hate About You, Withnail and I, Get Over It, and The West Wing. Each chapter includes notes and a list of works cited. A full bibliography completes the work; it is divided into bibliographies and filmographies, general studies and essays, derivatives based on a single play, derivatives based on several, and derivatives based on Shakespeare as a character.
ISBN: 9780786419098Publication Date: 2004-11-30
A History of Shakespeare on Screen by
A History of Shakespeare on Screen: A Century of Film and Television chronicles how film-makers have re-imagined Shakespeare's plays in moving images from their earliest exhibition in nickelodeons to today's multi-million dollar productions shown in multiplexes. Topics covered include the silent era, Hollywood in the 1930s, the films of Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles, the transgressive cinema of Jarman and Greenaway, and the renaissance of the Shakespeare film with Kenneth Branagh in the 1990s. The book is truly international in scope, looking not only at screen adaptations in the UK and the US but also at the films of Kozintsev, Kurosawa, Zeffirelli and others. A filmography, bibliography and index of names make it invaluable as a one-volume reference work for specialists, while its accessible style will ensure that it appeals to enthusiasts and film-goers as well as to a more academic audience.
ISBN: 0521594049Publication Date: 1999-09-23
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Finding Articles
Databases for finding scholarly articles on the broader topic of cinema studies are listed on the Cinema Studies Research Guide.
- FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals DatabaseResources for film history, theory, and criticism from The International Federation of Film Archives. Citations and select full-text of academic and popular film journals as well as holdings information of silent-era film archives.
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