Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - Adapting a book into a film and its consequences


Book Description

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, Technical University of Braunschweig (Englisches Seminar), course: British Popular Culture, language: English, abstract: When adapting a book into a film, different decisions have to be made concerning the narration, tense, point of view, and other formal devices. (Cf. Whelehan 1999: 9) This essay examines the differences and similarities between the novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and its film adaptation. It points out problems that occur when transposing a text to screen, and raises the question of the film’s authenticity towards the novel. Firstly, different critics are going to be scrutinized to get a better understanding of the discrepancy between literary criticism and film studies. Secondly, the characteristics of each medium shall be pointed at, combined with possible arising advantages and disadvantages. The following section evaluates the fictional source Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone versus the filmic source, asking the question of the primary importance of the origin text. For a concise analysis of book and film, I provide a sequence protocol and chapter record in the appendix. Lastly, I want to consider the issue of popular culture, and examine the question of the demand of popular literature to be turned into a film. The focus of examination will always be the first Harry Potter book and film version, although some references to the later volumes are made. Yet, it would go beyond the scope of this paper to consider all written and filmic sources of the Harry Potter phenomenon.




Heroism in the Harry Potter Series


Book Description

Taking up the various conceptions of heroism that are conjured in the Harry Potter series, this collection examines the ways fictional heroism in the twenty-first century challenges the idealized forms of a somewhat simplistic masculinity associated with genres like the epic, romance and classic adventure story. The collection's three sections address broad issues related to genre, Harry Potter's development as the central heroic character and the question of who qualifies as a hero in the Harry Potter series. Among the topics are Harry Potter as both epic and postmodern hero, the series as a modern-day example of psychomachia, the series' indebtedness to the Gothic tradition, Harry's development in the first six film adaptations, Harry Potter and the idea of the English gentleman, Hermione Granger's explicitly female version of heroism, adult role models in Harry Potter, and the complex depictions of heroism exhibited by the series' minor characters. Together, the essays suggest that the Harry Potter novels rely on established generic, moral and popular codes to develop new and genuine ways of expressing what a globalized world has applauded as ethically exemplary models of heroism based on responsibility, courage, humility and kindness.




Guide to the Harry Potter Novels


Book Description

JK Rowling now is half-way through a series which has taken the world by storm. Unusually, she has attracted success both in terms of massive sales figures and critical acclaim. This study will look at her books and consider some of the reasons for their phenomenal success. This will be done against a background of how Harry Potter relates to other contemporary childrenÆs books so that students and teachers can place them in the context for which they were written.This book has not been authorized by JK Rowling, her agent, or Warner Bros.




The Complete Idiot's Guide to Screenwriting


Book Description

Provides advice for aspiring screenwriters on how to write scripts for television and motion pictures, including what topics are popular, how to rework scenes, and how to sell screenplays in Hollywood.




The Magicians Trilogy Books 1-3


Book Description

The entire #1 New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy, including The Magicians, The Magician King, and The Magician's Land, now available in one ebook bundle The Magicians Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he’s secretly fascinated with a series of children’s fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing by comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams may have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit hole of hedonism and disillusionment, and ultimately to the dark secret behind the story of Fillory. The land of his childhood fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he ever could have imagined . . . The Magicians is one of the most daring and inventive works of literary fantasy in years. No one who has escaped into the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter should miss this breathtaking return to the landscape of the imagination. The Magician King Quentin Coldwater should be happy. He escaped a miserable Brooklyn childhood, matriculated at a secret college for magic, and graduated to discover that Fillory—a fictional utopia—was actually real. But even as a Fillorian king, Quentin finds little peace. His old restlessness returns, and he longs for the thrills a heroic quest can bring. Accompanied by his oldest friend, Julia, Quentin sets off—only to somehow wind up back in the real-world and not in Fillory, as they’d hoped. As the pair struggle to find their way back to their lost kingdom, Quentin is forced to rely on Julia’s illicitly learned sorcery as they face a sinister threat in a world very far from the beloved fantasy novels of their youth. The Magician's Land Quentin Coldwater has lost everything. He has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical world of his childhood dreams that he once ruled. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can’t hide from his past, and it’s not long before it comes looking for him. Meanwhile, the magical barriers that keep Fillory safe are failing, and barbarians from the north have invaded. Eliot and Janet, the rulers of Fillory, embark on a final quest to save their beloved world, only to discover a situation far more complex—and far more dire—than anyone had envisioned. Along with Plum, a brilliant young magician with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. His new life takes him back to old haunts, like Antarctica and the Neitherlands, and old friends he thought were lost forever. The Magician’s Land is an intricate and fantastical thriller, and an epic of love and redemption that brings the Magicians trilogy to a magnificent conclusion, confirming it as one of the great achievements in modern fantasy.




Re-Reading Harry Potter


Book Description

This book discusses the political and social presumptions ingrained in the texts of the Harry Potter series and examines the manner in which they have been received in different contexts and media. The 2nd edition also contains extensive new material which comments on the later books and examines the impact of the phenomenon across the world.




Gabi, a Girl in Pieces


Book Description

Gabi’s a girl in pieces. She wants a lot of things. Will she find the thing she needs most?




Harry, A History - Now Updated with J.K. Rowling Interview, New Chapter & Photos


Book Description

A new enhanced e-book edition, featuring an extended transcript from Melissa Anelli's exclusive interview with J. K. Rowling and a new, updated chapter! Melissa Anelli wears a ring that was a gift to her from J.K. Rowling, given as a measure of appreciation for the work she does on The Leaky Cauldron, where her job entails being a fan, reporter, guardian, and spokesperson for the Harry Potter series. For ten years, millions of fans have lived inside literary history, the only fans to know what it was like when Harry Potter was unfinished. When anticipation for a book was just as likely to cause a charity drive as a pistol shootout. When millions of rabid fans looked to friends, families, neighbors, forums, discussion groups, fan fiction and podcasts to get their fix between novels. When the death of a character was a hotter bet than who'd win the World Series. When one series of books had the power to change the way books are read. This has been a time when a book was more popular than movies, television, and video games. The series has spawned a generation of critical thinkers and new readers. The New York Times changed the way it reported book sales just to avoid a continual overpowering of its bestseller list. These events must be given their proper context, and this moment must be preserved. The series will remain important to literature and pop culture, but the experience will change. Harry's fate will be as commonly known as the identity of Luke Skywalker's father, and readers who never had to wait for a Harry Potter book will have no idea what transpired when the series had hundreds of millions of people waiting desperately for the next volume. We are the first wave of Harry Potter fans, the ones that are living in the time that shapes how Harry Potter will be remembered for all time. But when this era is over, fans will need some way to remember this strange, wonderful, dizzying experience. Future fans, too, will want to know what they missed. Harry Potter will exist as a seven-book series, but without the indivisible story of the cultural, literary and emotional impact the series has made, the story is incomplete. How can a fan understand Harry Potter without hearing about the midnight book parties, the scams, the theories, the burglaries, the bets, the bannings, and most importantly, the worldwide camaraderie spurred on by mutual love of a boy wizard? How can they know how Harry Potter changed and touched the lives of so many without hearing it first hand? Harry, A History tells this story. It tells the personal story of Melissa Anelli's journey through the very heart of Harry Potter fandom. And wraps this phenomenon up into one narrative, factual volume – one book that tells what happened when Harry Potter met the world.




Scott Westerfeld: Leviathan Trilogy


Book Description

All three books in Scott Westerfeld's around-the-world, steampunk, adventure trilogy, now collected together in one ebook bundle!




Adaptations


Book Description

Adaptations considers the theoretical and practical difficulties surrounding the translation of a text into film, and the reverse process; the novelisation of films. Through three sets of case studies, the contributors examine the key debates surrounding adaptations: whether screen versions of literary classics can be faithful to the text; if something as capsulated as Jane Austens irony can even be captured on film; whether costume dramas always of their own time and do adaptations remake their parent text to reflect contemporary ideas and concerns. Tracing the complex alterations which texts experience between different media, Adaptations is a unique exploration of the relationship between text and film.