I have a confession: I am guilty of\u00a0 “fidelity discourse” (444). Prior to reading Gary Bortolotti and Linda Hutcheon’s article, I could not have given my crime a name, but now it’s clear.\u00a0 I have dedicated years to reading novels for personal enjoyment and then waited, in zealous anticipation, for the movies to enter the theaters. Much to my dismay, these cinematic adaptations\u00a0 have been largely disappointing. The list of problems is extensive (I am terribly picky…): key events are omitted; the film is too short, or too long; the actors\/actresses chosen for the roles are all wrong; the feeling of the book hasn’t been properly captured; the soundtrack is peculiar, and onwards, my post-film rambling unfolds. In other words, I am guilty of giving “cultural and aesthetic precedence to the ‘source’ to which the adaptation is then judged either faithful or unfaithful – that is, good or bad (445)”.<\/p>\n
In my defense however,\u00a0 when a movie adaptation is first created (or at least, considered the first adaptation of significance for a particular generation, for example Baz Luhrman’s The Great Gatsby<\/em><\/em>), some viewers are largely interested in seeing the transference of novel to film. Bortolotti and Hutcheon reference the Harry Potter<\/em> movies, in particular the movie for the first book. Viewers flocked to the cinemas in anticipation of seeing a “retelling” of the novel in a new medium (449). Of importance, is the concept that the viewers wanted to see how accurately<\/em> the film captured the novel. Personally, I was quite impressed by the Harry Potter<\/em> films, finding them remarkably representative of their novels. (Although, I am apparently not allowed to make this sort of comparison…)<\/p>\n Perhaps I’m missing the point, but I’m not sure why the success of an adaptation can’t be based upon (or shouldn’t be based upon) its relationship with the original text. Isn’t there some merit to having carefully reflected on the story’s origin? What then, is the point of creating an adaptation if the story’s integrity, or at least key ideas, are not upheld? How is it then an adaptation? (Why not identify it as a completely separate story, unrelated to the novel or play?)<\/p>\n While film adaptations will continue to evolve (and they should), I do feel that a film can be adequate in its representation of a text, while still maintaining a contemporary viewpoint. Otherwise, I feel like the point of identifying a film as an adaptation loses its relationship with the source… what kind of adaptation is that? So confusing! <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n By Ashlee Petrucci (Blog #2)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Works Cited<\/strong><\/p>\n Bortolotti, G. and Hutcheon, L. (2007). On the Origin of Adaptations: Rethinking Fidelity Discourse and \u201cSuccess\u201d \u2014 Biologically. New Literary History<\/em>, 38(3), pp. 443-458.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have a confession: I am guilty of\u00a0 “fidelity discourse” (444). Prior to reading Gary Bortolotti and Linda Hutcheon’s article, I could not have given my crime a name, but now it’s clear.\u00a0 I have dedicated years to reading novels for personal enjoyment and then waited, in zealous anticipation, for the movies to enter the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16543,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564422,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adaptations","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16543"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1527"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1822,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527\/revisions\/1822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}