ENGLISH/MPTV 1154
FIlm AS LIterature
Welcome to ENGLI/MPTV 1154 – Film as Literature. This landing page will act as a resource directing you to information on each of the films we are studying this semester. Before we move into the course itself, I want to offer a little bit of guidance for how we’re going to approach our learning this semester.
I want you to begin by thinking about a book that you’ve read. It could be a favorite book, something you read in school, or something you read as a kid. Now think about the movie version of that book. It might be one of the Harry Potter films, or The Great Gatsby, or something more obscure and personal to you. Now, I want you to think about a time when you watched a film version of a book you loved, and found yourself shouting at the screen because the filmmakers changed something about the story. Maybe they took out an important scene. Maybe they cast someone who doesn’t look like the character as described. Maybe the setting is different. Maybe they changed the ending, and now you don’t recognize the story’s meaning.
We have a very personal relationship to film adaptations. Reading is a very intimate activity, done quietly, just us and a book. Film viewing is often very different, done in a group, watching a story made for a mass audience. Because we develop very close connections to the things we read, changes in adaptations can feel like an intense violation of the story we connected to.
This course will focus on film adaptations. We will examine a number of films that are based on previously composed source materials, not just limited to fiction, but considering other mediums as well As we work through the film adaptations we’re examining, we want to develop a framework for thinking about the process of adaptation. We don’t want to get stuck above, thinking about how mad we are that the filmmakers changed the story when they made it into a movie. We want to use that intensity as a jumping off point, but ultimately, move beyond it.
FILM ADAPTATION IN PROCESS: From fidelity to intertextuality
Each week, resources for the films we are studying will become available here. You can click either the page title or the image, both of which will take you where you need to go.
Adaptation
An introduction to the process of adaptation from source material to the screen.
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a matter of Fidelity
The benefits and limitations of the concept of "fidelity," an influential idea about the responsibility of adaptations to be faithful to its source material.
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Narration as a tool
Considering the role of narration on the page and on the screen, in light of the mediums' different capabilities.
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stability and instability in Point of View
Harnessing point of view to reflect character subjectivity and execute narration using a variety of film techniques.
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medium analysis - biopics
The biopic aims to bring the life of a notable person to the screen, but condensing an entire life into a manageable running time poses considerable challenges for adapters.
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medium analysis - Theatre
Bringing the theatricality of the stage to the screen and the variety of cinematic tools available to the filmmakers in doing so.
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medium analysis - Non-Fiction
Based on a true story. Sort of.
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authorship on screen
The cinema reaches for legitimacy through an identification of its great artists - auteurs, as in the literary author.
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the auteur theory in practice
The auteur theory's profound influence and serious limitations.
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Screen persona
Auditioning actors for the role of screen author, thanks to their recognizable, repeatable personae across multiple films, to which audiences connect.
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Intertextuality - a different approach
A way of thinking about adaptation that combines other approaches and is sensitive to all possible avenues of influence that make movies what they are.
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Historical Context
Examining the ways in which historical context, the moment in which a film was made, shapes its ideas, narratives, and formal strategies.
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Genre
Some movies fall into genres – broader categories of movies grouped by similar ideas, conventions, and formal approaches – which shape them in considerable ways.
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genre hybridity
When genres reach an impasse in their own development, they will often seek to combine two genres together to break new ground, which creates a highly intertextual viewing experience.
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masculinity
To study movies is also to examine how they both reflect and shape cultural ideas about identity, including definitions of masculinity—how men behave in their real lives is sometimes visible in a culture’s films.
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spectatorship
While filmmakers are the ones behind the camera during the process of making a movie, the audiences who watch it get a say in how it is received and, crucially, how it is interpreted.
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