Written and compiled by Tess Forbes, Susanna Goodson, Ayesha Khan, David Sharp and Wendy Thomas
There has been a long-standing relationship between literary novels and film and television. Adaptations of well-known 'classics' were made from the early days of cinema.
Yet this has often seemed to be an uneasy relationship. Frequently critical writing on adaptations has come from a literary standpoint focusing on the fidelity of the film to the novel on which it is based. On the other hand film theorists have indicated that these kind of literary judgements devalue film, which has its own visual language.
We hope that the references provided in this pack will give useful material on the issues surrounding this debate. There are a substantial number relating to films of the works of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and George Eliot, whose novels have frequently been adapted for film and television.
There is also a section on 'heritage film' as exemplified by the work of the Merchant Ivory production team in bringing adaptations of the novels of E.M.Forster to the screen. The 'heritage film' has been the subject of intense debate since the 1980s and and has been criticised by some for its commodification of the past - for its perceived tendency to present British culture and history in a prettified and conservative package.
Since the early 1990s there has been a move away from the 'heritage film' towards adaptations of literary novels by a number of directors who have worked in other genres and have brought a fresh vision to the costume film. Perhaps the first to take this approach was Martin Scorsese whose The Age of Innocence, adapted from the novel by Edith Wharton, was widely praised by film theorists as a cinematic triumph.
We therefore include a number of references illustrating the way in which Scorsese's use of the genre has encouraged a fresh debate on the subject of adaptations. Students who are engaged in their own research on adaptations may well wish to also consider other contemporary directors who have worked within this genre.
The pack was updated in 2006 to include selective French adaptations of the works of Honoré de Balzac, Guy de Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas père, Gustave Flaubert, Victor Hugo, Marcel Proust, Edmond Rostand, Jules Verne, and Emile Zola.
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