Abstract:
Since the inception of cinema, literature has been a primary source for countless films, providing complex narratives, character development, and thematic depth to filmmakers.
Despite the ontological interconnection between films and novels, the adaptation process is fraught with challenges. Critics often debate the loyalty of adaptations to their source material, asserting that films can never capture the subtleties of literary texts. For much of the 20th century, cinema was perceived as a lesser art form. In response, filmmakers, like François Truffaut, Orson Welles, Luis Bunuel, David Lynch, rebelled against uninspired lazy literary adaptations that rendered films “predictable and lifeless”. They engaged in an Oedipal battle for cinema’s survival as an authentic artistic medium while acknowledging the value of literature.
French film critic André Bazin encapsulated the filmmaker’s mission when adapting a novel: the goal is not to create a film that merely replicates the original work but to construct a new aesthetic entity that transcends the novel through the medium of cinema. In essence, adaptation is not about duplication; it is about creative enhancement.
By examining specific films alongside their literary counterparts — such as Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt and Alberto Moravia’s A Ghost at Noon, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Stephen King’s novel, Raúl Ruiz’s Time Regained and Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, and Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind and Robert Wilder’s novel—we will explore various (sometimes disastrous) strategies filmmakers employ to navigate this toxic liaison: plot compression, structural reinvention, character deviations, stylistic innovations, displacement of thematic emphasis, migration of cultural environment...
As we will see, all weapons of mass creation are welcome.
Biography:
Paolo Barzman is a Canadian film and television director and television writer. His television directing credits include The Adventures of the Black Stallion, Highlander: The Series, Counterstrike, Bordertown, Relic Hunter, Queen of Swords, 15/Love, 18 to Life, Lost Girl, Haven Wynonna Earp, the American-Canadian adaptation of Being Human and Surreal Estate.
Barzman has also directed a number of television films. In 2007, he directed the feature film Emotional Arithmetic starring Susan Sarandon and Christopher Plummer. He also directed the 2009 2-part mini-series The Phantom, based on the famous longtime costumed crime-fighting comic-strip character The Phantom.