Sunday, June 12, 2005

Fiction into film

While on the subject of adaptation, here’s a recommendation that most of my friends are already painfully familiar with: if you love books and films, and often ponder the nuances of translation from one medium to the other, please try to get hold of Joy Gould Boyum’s wonderful book Double Exposure: Fiction Into Film. After examining at great length the differences between the two art forms, Boyum goes on to illuminate these differences (and how they can be dealt with in adaptation) through a series of excellent essays on films like Apocalypse Now, Under the Volcano and A Clockwork Orange. It’s one of my favourite books, written by someone who clearly has equal regard for literature and cinema. And though Boyum is a Professor of English and Communication Arts, her writing never degenerates into unreadable academia of the sort that makes you want to give up reading and watching movies and living altogether.

4 comments:

  1. I'm snapping my fingers like a sistah!
    I know they didn't forget to mention Throne of Blood, THE best adaptation from book/play to screen of Shakespeare.
    Now that's true transformation, not just adaptation and translation but actual transformation from one medium to another. Which is why a lot of theater professors recommend the movie

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  2. Hi,
    had blogged about Throne of Blood a few months ago. Here's the link:
    http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/2005/01/shakespeare-on-film.html

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  3. "though Boyum is a Professor of English and Communication Arts, her writing never degenerates into unreadable academia of the sort that makes you want to give up reading and watching movies..."
    that's what all the half-wits who've been denied an education say.

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  4. Thanks, Anonymous. Being a half-wit is fun!

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