Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 232
Trim: 6½ x 9⅜
978-0-7425-3820-7 • Hardback • September 2007 • $129.00 • (£99.00)
978-0-7425-3821-4 • Paperback • October 2007 • $56.00 • (£43.00)
978-1-4616-3962-6 • eBook • October 2007 • $53.00 • (£41.00)
Christine Geraghty is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. She is the author of Women and Soap Opera (1991) and British Cinema in the Fifties (2000).
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 1 Narrative and Characterisation in Classic Adaptations: David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and Pride and Prejudice
Chapter 3 2 Art Cinema, Authorship, and the Impossible Novel: Adaptations of Proust, Woolf, and Joyce
Chapter 4 3 Tennessee Williams on Film: Space, Melodrama, and Stardom
Chapter 5 4 Feminism, Authorship, and Genre: Adaptations of the Novels of Edna Ferber and Pearl S Buck
Chapter 6 5 Revising the Western: Movement and Description in The Last of the Mohicans(1992) and Brokeback Mountain
Chapter 7 6 Space, Setting, and Mobility in Old New York: The Heiress, The House of Mirth, and Gangs of New York
Chapter 8 Conclusion
Chapter 9 Filmography
Chapter 10 Bibliography
This wide-ranging, multifaceted, accessible discussion thoughtfully addresses many understudied aspects of screen adaptation.
— Kamilla Elliott, Bowland College, author, Rethinking the Novel/Film Debate
Geraghty covers a wide variety of works...demonstrating the flexibility and broad applicability of her innovative approach to film adaptation....This study provides a fresh perspective on film adaptation....Highly recommended.
— Choice Reviews
Christine Geraghty's book is...methodologically clear, lucid, and consistent on all levels....At all times Geraghty's discussions remain detailed and nuanced to boot.
— Image & Narrative
Christine Geraghty's book on the adaptation of literature into film comes like a breath of fresh critical air. She knows that the antecedent text can't be ignored, but she places the film in what may well be much more revealing contexts. Geraghty has not only chosen an imposing and unexpected range of literary texts and the films derived from them (from The Last of the Mohicans to Ulysses), but she also views them from new perspectives. Her emphasis is rewardingly on the films themselves and on their contexts: art-house cinema, the half-way house cinema of 'heritage filmmaking,' European independent film, or British New Wave. Adapted films, as Geraghty makes plain, will be read in radically different ways if the viewer has more in mind than a slavish concern for what has been 'done' to the earlier text. This is an important book, scholarly and stimulating and entirely readable.
— Brian McFarlane, Monash University, Australia, and the University of Hull, United Kingdom
:
—Challenges the literary emphasis of much of the work on adaptations
—Takes on a wide range of films from George Cukor's David Copperfield to recent examples such as Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain and Martin Scorsese'sGangs of New York
—Explores Hollywood's use of authors, including Jane Austen, Edna Ferber, and Tennessee Williams
—Highlights stars, including Paul Newman, Daniel Day Lewis, and Anna Magnani, and their acting and performances
—Analyses criticalcontext, including examples of DVD commentaries and publicity material
—Includes an extensive filmography and a selected bibliography for further research and photographs to illustrate discussion