Authorship in film adaptation / edited and with an introduction by Jack Boozer.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Boozer, Jack, 1944-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Film adaptations.

Motion picture authorship.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (354 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Mildred Pierce : a troublesome property to script / Albert J. Lavalley

Hitchcock and his writers : authorship and authority in adaption / Thomas Leitch

From Traumnovelle (1927) to script to screen : Eyes wide shut (1999) / Jack Boozer

Private knowledge, public space : investigation and navigation in Devil in a blue dress / Mark L. Berrettini

"Strange and new

" : subjectivity and the ineffable in The sweet hereafter / Ernesto R. Acevedo-Munoz

Adaptation as adaptation : from Susan Orlean's The orchid thief to Charlie (and "Donald") Kaufman's screenplay to Spike Jonze's film / Frank P. Tomasulo

From obtrusive narration to crosscutting : adapting the doubleness of John Fowles's The French lieutenant's woman / R. Barton Palmer

The three faces of Lolita, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the adaptation / Rebecca Bell-Metereau

Traffic/Traffik : race, globalization, and family in Soderbergh's remake / Mark Gallagher

Adapting Nick Hornby's High fidelity : process and sexual politics / Cynthia Lucia

Adaptable Bridget : generic intertextuality and postfeminism in Bridget Jones's diary / Shelley Cobb

"Who's your favorite Indian?" : the politics of representation in Sherman Alexie's short stories and screenplay / Elaine Roth.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-292-79401-0

OCLC:

309904177