Authorship in Film Adaptation
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.

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Authorship in Film Adaptation
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.

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Authorship in Film Adaptation

Authorship in Film Adaptation

Authorship in Film Adaptation
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Authorship in Film Adaptation

Authorship in Film Adaptation

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780292718531
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Publication date: 07/01/2008
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 353
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jack Boozer is Professor of Film Studies in the Department of Communication at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He also has extensive professional and teaching experience in screenwriting and adapting literature to film. His previous book is Career Movies: American Business and the Success Mystique.

Table of Contents

  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction: The Screenplay and Authorship in Adaptation (Jack Boozer)
  • Part I. Hollywood's "Activist" Producers and Major Auteurs Drive the Script
    • 1. Mildred Pierce: A Troublesome Property to Script (Albert J. LaValley)
    • 2. Hitchcock and His Writers: Authorship and Authority in Adaptation (Thomas Leitch)
    • 3. From Traumnovelle (1927) to Script to Screen—Eyes Wide Shut (1999) (Jack Boozer)
  • Part II. Screenplay Adapted and Directed By
    • 4. Private Knowledge, Public Space: Investigation and Navigation in Devil in a Blue Dress (Mark L. Berrettini)
    • 5. "Strange and New . . .": Subjectivity and the Ineffable in The Sweet Hereafter (Ernesto R. Acevedo-Muñoz)
  • Part III. Writer and Director Collaborations: Addressing Genre, History, and Remakes
    • 6. 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)
    • 7. From Obtrusive Narration to Crosscutting: Adapting the Doubleness of John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman (R. Barton Palmer)
    • 8. The Three Faces of Lolita, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Adaptation (Rebecca Bell-Metereau)
    • 9. Traffic/Traffik: Race, Globalization, and Family in Soderbergh's Remake (Mark Gallagher)
  • Part IV. Variations in Screenwriter and Director Collaborations
    • 10. Adapting Nick Hornby's High Fidelity: Process and Sexual Politics (Cynthia Lucia)
    • 11. Adaptable Bridget: Generic Intertextuality and Postfeminism in Bridget Jones's Diary (Shelley Cobb)
    • 12. "Who's Your Favorite Indian?": The Politics of Representation in Sherman Alexie's Short Stories and Screenplay (Elaine Roth)
  • Notes on Contributors
  • Index
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