CIS 311 Prof. Maggie
Spring 2005
Chambers 3150
TR 1 – 2:15 ext. 2266
Chambers 3068 Office Hours: TR,
Filmic Adaptation
Course
Description
Traditionally, the topic of filmic adaptation has inspired its share of fuddy-duddy scholarship. Predictable metaphors describing film’s inevitable “betrayal” of literary sources abounded. In recent years a veritable boom of new scholarship has sought sophisticated theories and capacious metaphors for rethinking relations between texts and films. To move beyond the conceptual impasse of origin and deficient copy, critics have looked to Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of “dialogics.” Accordingly, all texts – broadly understood to encompass films and other artistic products – are more accurately “intertexts” which quote or embed fragments of texts in an endless cycle of transformation. The bad marriage of text/origin and film/copy that generated moralistic metaphors becomes, in this formulation, much more free-wheeling and non-hierarchical. Source texts can take many forms, including songs, poems, newspaper articles, comic strips and books, plays and other films. Even non-adaptation films could be said to adapt the screenplays on which they are based. My “bias” throughout this course will be to remain as unbiased as possible, hopefully privileging neither textual sources nor the films they inspire but instead respecting each as their own unique artistic creation.
Requirements
First and foremost, students are expected to be prepared, engaged participants in class. This means carefully preparing the readings and films. Classes will revolve less around formal lectures than analysis of the films, and our goal throughout is to promote good, original thinking and a strong eye and ear for interpreting film. By the end of the semester I hope that your ideas will be our primary focus in class.
Once during the semester you will lead class discussion in groups of two to three people. Generally, this group will consist of the week’s respondents. Your task is to offer a close reading which compares an excerpt from a source text and a film clip. Please help us to see affinities and/or disjunctures, plus hidden levels of meaning.
Written assignments will take two
forms: essays and electronic responses.
Twice you will write a 500 word response to the assigned film and
reading and post it via Blackboard to the entire class. Your response should raise useful questions,
suggest possible issues for class discussion, and offer original analysis. It will serve as our starting point in class,
so please avoid unconsidered editorializing. Electronic responses are due Sunday evenings by
During the course of the semester you will write two essays of approximately 3 – 4 pages which offer an original analysis of a film discussed in class. Please refrain from reiterating ideas already expressed in class. No secondary readings or internet sources should be used for these essays. Your final research paper of 8 – 10 pages should include a bibliography of at least 5 – 8 sources. See the course schedule for due dates.
Alternately, in lieu of a final paper, students are invited to create their own filmic adaptation. For an excellent example, see Cat Youell’s and Ben Whitman’s adaptation of the Julio Cortazar short story “Continuity of Parks,” which won first prize at last semester’s Sundav film festival. Filmmakers should identify themselves by the end of February so I can coordinate with Kristen Eschelman at the LRC for training sessions and equipment use.
Grades
Preparation and class participation 15%
Leading class discussion 15%
Electronic responses to material 30%
Essays 40%
Film screenings and secondary readings
All films will be on the “viewing shelf” in the library. Viewing rooms are on the second floor and in the basement. No film may leave the library. I would strongly encourage you to watch each film twice since it is much easier to recognize deeper levels of meaning after repeated viewings. Take notes on what you see and think about why things are represented as they are.
Group viewings of films are much more collegial and fun, and
accordingly I will cue up each film in Chambers 3068 at
Schedule
January 11 Discussion of syllabus
January 13 Introductory
lecture on adaptation
January 18 - 20 Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002)
Respondents:
January 25 - 27 All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)
All About My Mother (Pedro Almodovar, 1999)
February 1 - 3 American Splendor (
Respondents:
February 8 - 10 Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)
Gods
& Monsters (Bill Condon, 1998)
Respondents:
FEBRUARY 14 FIRST SHORT ESSAY DUE
February 15 - 17 Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999)
Respondents:
February 22 - 24 Short
Cuts (Robert Altman, 1993)
Respondents:
March 8 - 10
Respondents:
March 15 – 17 All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955)
Ali, Fears Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974)
Far
From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002)
New York Times article on Fassbinder’s Ali
Respondents:
MARCH 21 SECOND
SHORT ESSAY DUE
March 22 – 24 Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
Respondents:
March 29 NO CLASS
March 31 PICK A FILM
April 5 - 7 The Secret Lives of Dentists (Alan Rudolph, 2002)
Respondents:
April 12 - 14 Clueless
(Amy Heckerling, 1995)
Emma (Douglas McGrath, 1996)
April 19 - 21 This is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984)
The Last Waltz (Martin Scorsese, 1978)
April 26 film screenings of students’ adaptations (?)
MAY 11 FINAL PAPER DUE
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Bakhtin,
M.M. The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and
Michael Holquist.
Boose, Linda and
Richard Burt, eds.
Shakespeare, the
Movie (I & II). Popularizing the Plays on
Film, TV, Video and DVD.
Corrigan,
Timothy. Film and Literature. An Introduction and Reader.
Giddings, Robert & Erica Sheen. The Classic Novel. From Page to Screen.
_____ . “Mapping Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister on Wenders’ Wrong Move.” Eighteenth-Century on Film.
Ed. Robert Mayer.
_____ . “The Representation of Prostitutes in
Literature and Film: Margarete Böhme and G.W. Pabst.” Commodities of Desire. The Prostitute in Modern
McFarlane,
Brian. Novel to Film. An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation.
Naremore, James, ed. Film Adaptation.
Stam,
Robert. A Companion to Literature and Film.
_____ . Literature through Film. Realism, Magic, and the Art
of Adaptation.
_____ & Alessandra Raengo, eds. Literature and Film. A Guide to the Theory and
Practice of Film Adaptation.