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- Volume 5, Issue 1, 2012
Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2012
Volume 5, Issue 1, 2012
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‘The … monster, which doth mock/The meat it feeds on’: R.E.M.’s Monst(e)rous Othello
More LessDrawing on the distinction between a ‘text’ and a ‘work’ as defined by Joseph Grigely and revised by Thomas Cartelli and Katherine Rowe, this article argues that R.E.M.’s 1994 album, Monster appropriates some of the themes, situations and character-functions of the work Othello in order to illuminate and demystify the ways in which the mass media and mainstream rock and roll culture, in Iago-like fashion, attempt to seize and rewrite the identities of youths and inspire in them Othello-like effects of possessiveness and jealousy that can lead to male-on-female violence. Crucially, however, the album does not dramatize black male-on-white female violence; rather, it de-races the kind of possessiveness, jealousy and gendered violence that we find in Shakespeare’s play, usefully reminding us that such violence has no necessary connection to race.
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Romeo and Juliet from page to screen: A multilateral model for the analysis of three Italian films
More LessThe article examines three Italian film adaptations of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, directed by Castellani (1954), Freda (1964) and Torre (2000). As the tragedy of the lovers was originally an Italian tale that reached Shakespeare through translation and rewriting, this article explores the journey of the story back to Italy through a process of translation into a different medium, interpretation and re-appropriation by Italian directors. The transposition from page to screen is seen as a process of translation and is analysed adopting the ‘star-like’ model suggested by Cattryss, which looks for the models or semiotic devices that have affected the production of a film. The article analyses the interpretations given by the Italian directors and identifies the different ‘source texts’ that might have influenced the translation from page to screen.
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Ocularcentrism, horror and The Lord of the Rings films
More LessThe majority of the analyses of The Lord of the Rings films centre on extratextual dimensions: the political economy of film production, of audiences and fandom, and the impact of technology on envisaging the series. Instead, this article explores the aesthetic qualities of the films, focusing on the visualization of the chapter ‘Lothlórien’ from Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, and ‘The passage of the marshes’ and ‘Shelob’s lair’ from The Two Towers. In making The Lord of the Rings, Director Peter Jackson engages with the cinematic possibilities of vision and images of the eye; he then borrows spectatorial conceits from the horror film in order to relate the ocularcentric to the vulnerability of the individual body of Frodo Baggins. In visualizing the trilogy, an obsession is born, not only with the image of the eye, but also with the horror of being watched and of watching.
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The metaphor of dance in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket
More LessThis article is centred on the role of music in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Full Metal Jacket (1987). In these films music becomes audible and images seem to emanate from it. Dialogue and voice-over seem to be used, in the majority of cases, in the same way as music, because they are adopted for their rhythm, for their signifier, and not for their signified. The mise-en-scène, the editing, the dialogue and voice-over seem to obey the rhythm of music. Moreover, thanks to these cinematic features, the style of the source novels A Clockwork Orange (Burgess, [1962] 2000) and The Short-Timers (Hasford, [1979] 1980) is, respectively, translated and highlighted in A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket. Thus, these two films become emblematic examples of the director’s deep sensibility to the style of the adapted books.
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Adapting film parody for the sitcom format: Mel Brooks’s When Things Were Rotten (1975) and The Nutt House (1989)
By Alex SymonsThe landmark sitcom studies by Brett Mills, Janet Staiger and David Marc have previously identified a tendency in the ‘mainstream’ American sitcom towards standardized production values, predictable storylines and socially ‘conservative’ comedy. However, Mel Brooks’s projects When Things Were Rotten (1975) and The Nutt House (1989) are from a different tradition. Following in the ‘intermedial’ approach employed by André Gaudreault, this article examines the way Brooks constructed these shows by adapting material from his own ‘surreal’ Hollywood parody films – in particular, Blazing Saddles (1974) and Young Frankenstein (1974). By adapting the conventions of film ‘parody’ to the sitcom format, Brooks’s sitcoms – along with similar shows by others – were ‘innovative’ and untypical to the tradition. More importantly, these intermedial projects suggest that Hollywood film has made a so far neglected contribution to the historical development of the American sitcom that still continues today.
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Continental Drift: Europe and translation, poetry and film
Authors: Wyn Mason and Alexis Nuselovici (Nouss)This article is an account of a trans-European poetry-film project, Continental Drift, which consists of a system of mutating from one short film to the next via poetry. Its methodology is explained, along with a description of how the project, still in its initial stages, is progressing. The main theoretical notion that underpins the project is viewing translation as a key concept for understanding European identity. The article first explores a view of European history and culture from a translational perspective, before demonstrating how these ideas have informed how the project is structured and viewed. Finally, the term moiré, borrowed from physics, is introduced as a general cultural term, but specifically used here to facilitate an understanding of translation and poetry-film.
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REVIEWS
Authors: Steven Peacock, Laurence Raw, Jamie Sherry and James M. WelshINGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘THE SILENCE’, MAARET KOSKINEN (2010) Copenhagen: Museum Tuscalanum Press, 208 pp., ISBN: 978-87-635-3159-7, p/bk, £16.99
DAGUR KARI’S ‘NOI THE ALBINO’, BJÖRN NORDFJÖRD (2010) Copenhagen: Museum Tuscalanum Press, 165 pp., ISBN: 978-87-635-3160-3, p/bk, £15.99
LONE SCHERFIG’S ‘ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS’, METTE HJORT (2010) Copenhagen: Museum Tuscalanum Press, 277 pp., ISBN: 978-87-635-3483-3, p/bk, £25.00
THEORIZING NARRATIVITY, JOHN PIER AND JOSÉ ANGELGARCIA LANDA (EDS) (2008) Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co, 464 pp., ISBN: 978-3-11-020244-1, h/bk, $10.00
ANALYZING LITERATURE-TO-FILM ADAPTATIONS: A NOVELIST’S EXPLORATION AND GUIDE, MARY H. SNYDER (2011) New York and London: Continuum, 320 pp., ISBN 9781441168184, p/bk, £17.99
TRUE TO THE SPIRIT: FILM ADAPTATION AND QUESTION OF FIDELITY, COLIN MACCABE, KATHLEEN MURRAY AND RICK WARNER (EDS) (2011) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 250 pp., ISBN: 978-0-19-537467-4, p/bk, $24.95
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Editorial
Authors: Richard Hand and Katja Krebs
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