Book Description

What is the relationship between literature and film? What is meant when speaking about “adapting” a literary work to the screen? Is it possible to adapt? And if so, how? Are there films that have “improved” their literary sources? Is adaptation a “translation” or, rather, a “re-interpretation”? What is the impact of adapting literary classics to a modern context? This collection of articles offers a comprehensive and authoritative study of literary adaptation to film which addresses these and other unresolved questions in the field of Literary Adaptation Studies. Within five different sections, the volume’s international team of contributors offers valuable study cases, suggesting both the continuity and variety of adaptation theories. The first section traces recurring theoretical issues regarding the problems and challenges related to the adaptation of literary works to the particular nature and dynamics of cinema. The second and third parts focus on the specific problems and technical challenges of adapting theatre and narrative works to film and TV series respectively. The fourth section includes the study of Latin American authors whose works have been adapted to the screen. The fifth and final part of the book deals with the structures and devices that film directors use in order to tell stories. The art of telling and re-telling stories, which originated in ancient times, is present throughout this publication, giving shape to the discussion. Adaptations of stories are present everywhere in today’s world, and their development is well told and re-told in this volume, which will definitely interest academics and researchers working in literature and film comparative studies, novelists, screenwriters, film makers, dramatists, theatre directors, postgraduate students, and those researching on topics related to the philosophy of art and aesthetics.