Emma Adapted: Jane Austen’s Heroine from Book to Film

by Marc DiPaolo

This work of literary and film criticism examines all eight filmed adaptations of Jane Austen’s Emma produced between 1948 and 1996 as vastly different interpretations of the source novel. Instead of condemning the movies and television specials as being «not as good as the book,» Marc DiPaolo considers how each adaptation might be understood as a valid «reading» of Austen’s text. For example, he demonstrates how the Gwyneth Paltrow film Emma is both a romance and a female coming-of-age story, the 1972 BBC miniseries dramatizes Emma’s world as claustrophobic and Emma herself as suffering from depression, and the modern-day teen comedy Clueless comes closest of all to bringing a feminist reading of the novel to the screen. Each version illuminates a different, legitimate way of reading the novel that is rewarding for Austen fans, scholars, and students alike.

190 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2007

Reviews

[Carolyn]

Really good! I would highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in Film or Literature Studies. Even though it focuses on "Emma" in particular, its points are valid for any film adaptation.

[Devoney Looser · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had the pleasure of reviewing this book: Looser, Devoney. Rev. of Emma Adapted: Jane Austen’s Heroine from Book to Film, by Marc DiPaolo. Eighteenth-Century Fiction 21.3 (2009): 474–76. Print.