Film Adaptation

This class considers theories and strategies of film adaptation across a variety of films. Rather than measuring these films in terms of their successful fidelity to the source work, the emphasis of the course will address the creative negotiation between film and literature as raising questions of narrative, genre, historiography, desire, the idea of race, gendered subjectivity, and intertextuality. Students will read original works with in-class screenings of the adaptations. Drawing from critical work across disciplines, the course serves as an opportunity to focus on the aesthetic, cultural, and political properties of film and the art of adaptation. Some of the film adaptations and ideas include: Spike Jonze’s Adaptation (2002) Spike Lee’s Malcolm X (1992), Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s Persepolis (2007), film noir, queer cinema, Latin American cinema, the idea of black film, and the work of Stanley Kubrick. Pre-Requisites for the course are: MCA 12100 or ENGL 25000 or Permission of the Instructor.

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