Classics in Film and Fiction

Edited by Deborah Cartmell, I. Q. Hunter, Heidi Kaye, Imelda Whelehan

Publication date:

20 March 2000

Length of book:

256 pages

Publisher

Pluto Press

ISBN-13: 9781849645096

This book negotiates the notion of a 'classic' in film and fiction, exploring the growing interface and the blurring of boundaries between literature and film. Taking the problematic term 'classic' as its focus, the contributors consider both canonical literary and film texts, questioning whether classic status in one domain transfers it to another.

Classics in Film and Fiction looks at a wide range of texts and their adaptations. Authors discussed are Shakespeare, Charlotte Bronte, Henry James, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Miller, Truman Capote and Lewis Carroll. Book to film adaptations analysed include Jane Eyre, The Crucible, The Tempest and Alice in Wonderland. The collection also evaluates the term 'classic' in a wider context, including a comparison of Joyce's Ulysses with Hitchcock's Rear Window. Throughout, the contributors challenge the dichotomy between high culture and pop culture.

Introduction: Classics across the film/literature divide by Heidi Kaye and Imelda Whelehan
1. ‘If Only You Could See What I’ve Seen with Your Eyes’: Bladerunner and Symphonie Pastorale by Nick Peim
2. Classic Shakespeare for All: Forbidden Planet and Prospero's Books, Two Screen Adaptations of The Tempest by Sara Martin
3. The Red and the Blue: Jane Eyre in the Nineties by Lisa Hopkins
4. Transcultural Aesthetics and the Film Adaptations of Henry James by Martin Halliwell
5. ‘Hystorical’ Puritanism: Contemporary Cinematic Adaptations of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible by Sergio Rizzo
6. Mrs Dalloway and Orlando: The Subject of Time and Generic Transactions by Lesley Higgins and Marie-Christine Leps
7. ‘Desire Projected Itself Visually’: Watching Death in Venice by Stuart Burrows
8. Leopold Bloom Walks and Jimmy Stewart Stares: On Motion, Genre, and the Classic by Kay Young
9. Trial and Error: Combinatory Fidelity in Two Versions of Franz Kafka's The Trial by Paul M. Malone
10. In Cold Blood: Yellow Birds, New Realism and Killer Culture by Paul Wells
11. Home by Tea-time: Fear of Imagination in Disney’s Alice in
Wonderland by Deborah Ross
Notes on Contributors
Index

'An essential volume for readers interested in the theory and practice of film adaptation and canon formation'