Victorian vogue : British novels on screen / Dianne F. Sadoff.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sadoff, Dianne F.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--19th century--Film adaptations.

English fiction.

Motion pictures and literature.

Film adaptations--History and criticism.

Film adaptations.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (353 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

Summary:

"Ranging from cinematic images of Jane Austen's estates to Oscar Wilde's drawing rooms, Dianne F. Sadoff looks at popular heritage films, often featuring Hollywood stars, that have been adapted from nineteenth-century novels. [This book] argues that heritage films perform different cultural functions at key historical moments in the twentieth century. According to Sadoff, they are characterized by a double historical consciousness--one that is as attentive to the concerns of the time of production as to those of the Victorian period. If James Whale's Frankenstein and Tod Browning's Dracula exploited post-Depression fear in the 1930's, the horror films of the 1950's used the genre to explore homosexual panic, 1970's movies elaborated the sexuality only hinted at in the thirties, and films of the 1990's indulged the pleasures of consumption. Taking a broad view of the relationships among film, literature, and current events, Sadoff contrasts films not merely with their nineteenth-century source novels but with crucial historical moments in the twentieth century, showing their cultural use in interpreting the present, not just the past"--Publisher description.

Contents:

Heritage film, classic serial, and England's Jane

Being true to nineteenth-century narrative

Reproducing monsters, vampires, and cyborgs

Middlebrow audiences, cinematic sex, and the Henry James films

Styles of queer heritage.

Notes:

Filmography: p. 305-308.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-8166-7074-9

OCLC:

652654518