Classics in Film and Fiction

Deborah Cartmell

Description

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

Sujets

• Shakespeare
• Media Studies
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• La letra escarlata
• Película fotográfica
• The Tempest
• Film studies
• The Scarlet Letter
• Cultural studies
• Literary criticism
• Literary theory
• History of film
• Anthropology
• William Shakespeare
• La Tempête
• Social
• Demi Moore
• Kyle MacLachlan
• Peter Greenaway
• Film
• Culture
• Alfred Hitchcock

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 mars 2000
• Nombre de lectures: 4
• EAN13: 9781849645096
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Classics in Film and Fiction

Pluto Press

Film/Fictionvolume 5

Classics in Film and Fiction

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

P Pluto Press LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA

Disclaimer: Some images in the original version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook.

First published 2000 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA

Copyright © Deborah Cartmell, I.Q. Hunter, Heidi Kaye and Imelda Whelehan 2000

The right of the individual contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 7453 1593 3 hbk

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Classics in film and fiction / edited by Deborah Cartmell ... [et al.]. p. cm.— (Film/fiction ; v. 5) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0–7453–1593–3 (hbk) 1. Film adaptations—History and criticisms. 2. Motion pictures and literature. 3. Canon (Literature) I. Cartmell, Deborah. II. Series.

PN1997.85 .C56 2000 791.43'6—dc21

00–020428

Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Production Services, Chadlington OX7 3LN Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton Printed in the EU by TJ International, Padstow

Contents

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: Classics Across the Film/Literature Divide Heidi Kaye and Imelda Whelehan

1.‘If Only You Could See What I’ve Seen with Your Eyes’:Blade RunnerandLa Symphonie Pastorale Nick Peim

2.Classic Shakespeare for All:Forbidden Planet andProspero’s Books, Two Screen Adaptations ofThe Tempest Sara Martin

3.The Red and the Blue:Jane Eyrein the 1990s Lisa Hopkins

4.Transcultural Aesthetics and the Film Adaptations of Henry James Martin Halliwell

5.‘Hystorical’ Puritanism: Contemporary Cinematic Adaptations of Nathaniel Hawthorne’sThe Scarlet Letterand Arthur Miller’sThe Crucible Sergio Rizzo

6.Mrs DallowayandOrlando: The Subject of Time and Generic Transactions Lesley Higgins and Marie-Christine Leps

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1

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34

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7.‘Desire Projected Itself Visually’: Watching Death in Venice Stuart Burrows

8.Leopold Bloom Walks and Jimmy Stewart Stares: On Motion, Genre and the Classic Kay Young

9.Trial and Error: Combinatory Fidelity in Two Versions of Franz Kafka’sThe Trial Paul M. Malone

10.In Cold Blood: Yellow Birds, New Realism and Killer Culture Paul Wells

11.Home by Tea-time: Fear of Imagination in Disney’sAlice in Wonderland Deborah Ross

Index

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157

176

194

207

229

Notes on Contributors

Stuart Burrowsis a PhD candidate in the English Department at Princeton University. Born in Bromley, Kent, he earned his BA from the University of Southampton and an MA from Northeastern University in Boston, MA. A regular reviewer of fiction in theNew Statesman, Burrows is currently completing his dissertation, which examines the influence of photography on the writing of Henry James, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston and James Agee.

Deborah Cartmellis Principal Lecturer in the Department of English, De Montfort University. She has published on Shakespeare and film adaptations, Renaissance poetry and Afro-American literature. Her most recent books include Adaptations(Routledge, 1999: edited with I. Whelehan) and Interpreting Shakespeare on Screen(Macmillan, 2000).

Martin Halliwellis Lecturer in English and American Studies at Leicester University. He has published articles on modern American and European literature and is the author ofRomantic Science and the Experience of Self: Transatlantic Crosscurrents from William James to Oliver Sacks(Ashgate 1999). He is currently working on a book onModernism and Morality for Macmillan.

Lesley Higginsis an Associate Professor of English at York University (Toronto), whose research and teaching interests include modernism, gender studies and textual studies. Her essays can be found in theSouthern Review, Gender in Joyceand Victorian Studies. She has also published numerous essays on Gerard Manley Hopkins and Walter Pater. With Marie- Christine Leps she has produced articles forCollege literature and Rethinking Marxism, and they are developing a project vii

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concerningForms of Governance in Twentieth-Century Writing: The Critical Fictions of Foucault, Woolf, Auster, Ondaatje.

Lisa Hopkinsis a Senior Lecturer in English at Sheffield Hallam University. Her publications includeJohn Ford’s Political Theatre(MUP, 1994) andThe Shakespearean Marriage: Merry Wives and Heavy Husbands(Macmillan, 1998). She is currently completing the Macmillan literary life of Marlowe.

I.Q. Hunteris Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at De Montfort University, Leicester. He is joint editor of Routledge’s British Popular Cinema series, for which he edited British Science Fiction Cinema(1999), and co-editor of the film/fiction series. He is currently writing a book on Hammer’s science fiction and fantasy films.

Heidi Kayewas a Senior Lecturer in English and Women’s Studies at De Montfort University. She is a co-editor of the Film/Fiction series and has forthcoming articles on Jane Austen and cinema, theX Files, Gothic film andStar Trek – Deep Space Nine. She is now a software training consultant and writes freeform role-playing games in her spare time.

Marie-Christine Lepsis Associate Professor of English and Social and Political Thought at York University (Toronto) and specialises in literary theory and cultural critique. She is the author ofApprehending the Criminal: The Production of Deviance in Nineteenth-Century Discourse, and essays concerning the information age. With Lesley Higgins she has produced articles forCollege literatureandRethinking Marxism, and they are developing a project concerningForms of Governance in Twentieth-Century Writing: The Critical Fictions of Foucault, Woolf, Auster, Ondaatje.

Paul M. Maloneis an Assistant Professor in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. His doctoral dissertation dealt with four stage adaptations of Kafka’s novel The Trial. In addition to teaching in German language, literature, culture and film, he researches in theatre and film

Notes on Contributors

ix

history, the impact of computer technology on performance, and literary translation of theatre.

Sara Martinteaches English Literature at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain. She has published articles on film and literature, gender studies, contemporary British fiction, popular fiction and cultural studies.

Nick Peimteaches in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham. He is author ofCritical Theory and the English Teacher(Routledge, 1993) – an attempt to take on the institutionalised practices of English. His research interests include the cultural politics of education, language and education, gender and education, the history of the emergence and development of state education and media education.

Sergio Rizzoteaches courses in American literature and popular culture at the University of Houston-Downtown. Currently he is working on Hollywood’s representation of Bill Clinton and the American Presidency

Deborah Rossis a Professor of English at Hawaii Pacific University, where she has taught since 1985. She is the author of a book-length study of women and fiction, entitledThe Excellence of Falsehood: Romance, Realism, and Women’s Contribution to the Novel(1991). Her recent research interests include female narratives in popular culture, including television soap operas as well as Disney movies.

Paul Wellsis Professor and Head of the Media Academic Section at the University of Teesside. He has written widely on various aspects of popular culture, specialising in Animation and Comedy. His latest publication isThe Horror Genre: Belezebub to Blair Witch(Wallflower Press) and a further book,Animating America(Edinburgh University Press), is due out shortly.

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Imelda Whelehanis Principal Lecturer in English and Women’s Studies at De Montfort University, Leicester. She is author ofModern Feminist Thought(Edinburgh University Press, 1995), joint editor ofAdaptations(Routledge, 1999) and co-editor of the film/fiction series. Her feminist critique of anti-feminism in contemporary culture,Overloaded, will be published by The Women’s Press in 2000.

Kay Youngis an Assistant Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has recently completed a manuscript on how novels and films create states of intimacy and happiness, entitledOrdinary Pleasures. She has written on the nature of team comedy, the musical comedy of Stephen Sondheim and the philosophical works of Søren Kierkegaard. She is currently at work on a series of essays on the interrelation between aesthetics and cognition.

Introduction: Classics Across the Film/Literature Divide

Heidi Kaye and Imelda Whelehan

No one ever reads a classic novel, according to Italo Calvino. Everyone says that they arere-readinga classic, the assumption being that a well read person has already encountered the 1 classics at least once. David Lodge invented the parlour game ‘Humiliation’ in his campus novelChanging Places(1975) in which academics compete by admittingnotto have read a classic text which they ‘ought’ to know, scoring points for 2 each colleague whohasClassics have snob valueread it. because they are inherently elitist; an intellectual coterie confers value on certain works and judges an individual’s value on familiarity with such ‘high’ cultural artefacts, thereby allowing her or him to enter the elite. Schools inculcate a canon of works considered to be of literary merit along with a set of aesthetic and ideological criteria by which to validate such works as canonical. Critical theory in the past thirty years or so has put under question such criteria and such canonisation, and yet educational policy continues to reinforce such values. Newspapers report scare stories about Shakespeare being replaced by soap operas in our schools and universities, despite all the arguments in favour of the value of Cultural Studies engaged in by academics. It is difficult enough to define a ‘classic’ in literature, let alone find agreement about what a classic in a newer, more ‘popular’ medium such as film might be. The contributors to this collection of the Film/Fiction series attempt in various ways to tackle this question, as well as to interrogate the value of such labels as ‘classic’ and ‘popular’ when dealing with film and fiction. What happens when a classic text is adapted for a new 1