Nathanael West And John Schlesinger The Day Of The Locust A Survey Of The Translation From Novel To Film

Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject American Studies - Comparative Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Augsburg (Lehrstuhl für Amerikanistik), course: Proseminar: Novels of the American Modernism, language: English, abstract: Although Nathanael West’s novel The Day of the Locust did not receive much attention when published in 1939, it is today considered one of the best and most revealing novels about Hollywood. Its reviews are outstanding and it has therefore become one of the landmarks in American writing. The Day of the Locust demonstrates the fragility of the American Dream and presents it from various perspectives. It points out the cruel world of film industry using devices of irony and satire. Therefore it resembles a “nightmare vision of humanity destroyed by its obsession with film”. West took the title of the novel from the Bible. In Revelation, people turn into locusts in order to follow their aim of destroying the whole world. They do not kill immediately, though, but only sting and hurt in order to let their victims die slowly. These locusts can be compared to the film industry in Hollywood which also exploits and slowly kills its people. Besides, in the Bible Jeremiah prophesies a necessary ending of the world which ought to lead mankind to a new life and a rebirth. In the novel, this image is taken up again. This aspect will be thoroughly discussed later, though. The concept of apocalypse can be found throughout the novel and beside violence and decadence, the devaluation of love is a prominent theme, too. West illustrates the moral decay of characters on the fringe of the entertainment industry, that are Homer Simpson, Faye Greener and Tod Hackett. Each character has come to California seeking fame or health in the shining city Los Angeles, and each suffers from his or her own history of desperation and shattered dreams. Producers had already thought about turning West’s novel into a film in the early 1950’s. As they feared that most of the satirical view would get lost, however, the film was not shot until 1974, when the famous director John Schlesinger committed himself to the adaptation. [...] This survey focuses on the translation from novel to film, compares and contrasts differences, and reveals the different perspectives of the characters. Furthermore, it will both examine the use of film techniques in Schlesinger’s adaptation and the meaning of symbolism in the film. Last but not least, a few commonly invoked critical viewpoints of the film will be discussed.

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Frankfurt (Main), course: Decadence and Moderism in the Late 20th Century American Cinema, language: English, abstract: Jonathan Veitch asserts in the preface of his book American Superrealism that critics have had problems in placing Nathanael West within the literature of the 1930s and American literature in general. They understood him for example as "a poet of darkness", as "an apocalyptic writer", as "a homegrown surrealist", as "a writer of the left", as a "universal satirist", in a way as "the prototype of the contemporary Jewish-American novelist" (Wisker 1-2) or as a realistic writer (Martin, see Roberts). Although some of these characterizations are contradictory, they all fit because they reflect different facets of the author, or rather his work. West combined all these elements and probably even several others in his writings. His "style was never constant. At times his pictorial technique closely resembles collage [but also] cartoon strips, movies, and several different schools of painting, as well as such non-graphic visual arts as the tableau and the dance." (Reid 9) Taking the (though not planned) final result of his development as a writer, his last book The Day of the Locust (1939) as an example, I want to show in my essay that at least one of West's books does not "fall between the different schools of writing" (Wisker 2), as he once noted. He is certainly a representative of modernism, the "literary movement" and "point of view" of his time (see O'Conner) not only because a "struggle for definition is part of what those years are about" (Wisker 121). Nathanael West was influenced by the same historical events and used many of the strategies other contemporary writers employed to express his way of seeing the world. I will point out the features of modernism in the novel because, as Randall Reid states, "[i]n a century which has made expe

Two classic short stories, one about a male reporter who writes an advice column, and the other, about people who have migrated to California in expectation of health and ease.

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2019 in the subject Film Science, grade: A, language: English, abstract: This paper explores the similarities and differences of Lila, Lila (My Words, My Lies, My Love) in the novel by Martin Suter and the film version directed by Alain Gsponer. Topics such as identity, setting, character development, and deceit are addressed. Lila, Lila is a 2004 novel written by Martin Suter. Suter, who was born in 1948 in Zürich, worked as a copywriter and wrote screenplays and features for various magazines. He was noted for his weekly magazine column "Business Class" in which he satirized the life of upper management in short-story form. Suter's simple, straightforward language and engaging plots as well as his light, humorous, and often satirical descriptiveness have helped him become a successful author (Jandourková, 2013). His break-through as author came in 1997 with his first novel, Small World, which dealt with identity crises caused by Alzheimer's Disease. (Bruckner, 2018, p. 79; Jandourková, 2013, p. 8). In Lila, Lila Suter also addresses the topic of identity, in this case how his character's identity changes when he becomes a famous author, is under pressure, and wrestles with guilt.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Bayreuth (Anglophone Literaturen und Kulturen ), course: HS Africa on Film, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction 2 2. Athol Fugard as a writer and the historical context 2 3. Tsotsi as a novel and Tsotsi as a film - a direct comparison 3 3.a. General differences 3 3.a.1. Narrators in novels and pictures in films 3 3.a.2. The atmosphere 4 3.a.3. The setting 4 3.a.4. The language 5 3.b. The differences in the plots of the two versions 5 3.b.1. Tsotsi's gang and the murder of Gumboot Dhlamini (Chapter 1) 5 3.b.2. Tsotsi's fight with Boston (Chapter 2) 6 3.b.3. Tsotsi's encounter with the baby (Chapter 3) 7 3.b.4. Tsotsi hides the baby in the ruins (Chapter 4) 8 3.b.5. The funeral of Gumboot Dhlamini, Boston's recovery and Tsotsi's reunification with Butcher and Die Aap (Chapter 5) 9 3.b.6. Tsotsi's encounter with Morris Tshabalala (Chapters 6 and 7) 9 3.b.7. Tsotsi finds a replacement mother in Miriam Ngidi (Chapter 8) 10 3.b.8. Tsotsi's childhood (Chapter 9) 11 3.b.9. Tsotsi's second encounter with Miriam Ngidi (Chapter 10) 12 3.b.10. The story of Boston's life (Chapter 11) 13 3.b.11. Tsotsi's death (Chapter 12) 15 4. Interpretations of the major differences 16 4.a. The replacement of the apartheid topic 16 4.b. The different atmospheres in the two works 17 4.c. The missing narrator and its effect on the plausibility and numerous details 18 4.d. Apparent commercial reasons for changes in the plot 18 5. Summary 19 6. Works cited 19 Unlike the novel's plot, the plot of the film is not set in the 1950s to 60s but in the post-apartheid South Africa around the beginning of the new millennium. Not just because more than 40 years passed from the original idea until its publication as a film, the original novel and the film version are quite different in many aspects. Although both the novel and the film follow roughly the same structure, th