Screen Adaptation: Impure Cinema

by Deborah Cartmell, Imelda Whelehan

Adaptation studies has historically been neglected in both the English and Film Studies curricula. Reflecting on this, Screen Adaptation celebrates its emergence in the late 20th and 21st centuries and explores the varieties of methodologies and debates within the field. Drawing on approaches from genre studies to transtexuality to cultural materialism, the book examines adaptations of both popular and canonical writers, including William Shakespeare, Jane Austen and J.K.Rowling.

Original and provocative, this book will spark new thinking and research in the field of adaptation studies. Mapping the way in which this exciting field has emerged and shifted over the last two decades, the book is also essential reading for students of English Literature and Film.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2010

Reviews

[Zachary · Rating 3 out of 5]

The introduction of this book sets it up to be something of an introduction to the field of adaptation studies. Largely, I think, the book fails in this respect. There are times that I felt I was being welcomed into that field, and given a bit of a tour of some of its most relevant and interesting theories. But other times I felt lost, thrown into debates over minutia with minimal context or guidance. This was primarily true of the two closing chapters, with the majority of the rest of the book at least being relatively readable and straightforward. Examples were mostly interesting, with only a few that seemed randomly chosen, with the caveat being that the ones that seemed randomly chosen got the majority of the discussion. Not a bad read, but a bit of a slow one despite being kind of a short book.