Nineteenth Century American Fiction On Screen

An up-to-date illustrated survey of the important films based on, or inspired by, nineteenth-century American fiction.

The process of translating works of literature to the silver screen is a rich field of study for both students and scholars of literature and cinema. The fourteen essays collected in this 2007 volume provide a survey of the important films based on, or inspired by, nineteenth-century American fiction, from James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans to Owen Wister's The Virginian. Many of the major works of the American canon are included, including The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick and Sister Carrie. The starting point of each essay is the literary text itself, moving on to describe specific aspects of the adaptation process, including details of production and reception. Written in a lively and accessible style, the book includes production stills and full filmographies. Together with its companion volume on twentieth-century fiction, the volume offers a comprehensive account of the rich tradition of American literature on screen.

The essays in this collection analyse major film adaptations of twentieth-century American fiction, from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon to Toni Morrison's Beloved. During the century, films based on American literature came to play a central role in the history of the American cinema. Combining cinematic and literary approaches, this volume explores the adaptation process from conception through production and reception. The contributors explore the ways political and historical contexts have shaped the transfer from book to screen, and the new perspectives that films bring to literary works. In particular, they examine how the twentieth-century literary modes of realism, modernism, and postmodernism have influenced the forms of modern cinema. Written in a lively and accessible style, the book includes production stills and full filmographies. Together with its companion volume on nineteenth-century fiction, the volume offers a comprehensive account of the rich tradition of American literature on screen.

Nineteenth-century American romance, as a genre, is defined by the writings of a particular group of authors - James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Henry James - all of whom are associated with one another in time and place. In this volume, Emily Miller Budick examines the genre both as a style and within a historical context. She interprets American romance as an evolving literary aesthetic and cultural philosophy - as an effort by a group of writers to produce what Noah Webster called an "American tongue", a language imbued with the values of democracy and pluralism.

From William Dickson's Rip Van Winkle films (1896) to Baz Luhrmann's big-budget production of The Great Gatsby (2013) and beyond, cinematic adaptations of American literature participate in a rich and fascinating history. Unlike previous studies of American literature and film, which emphasize particular authors like Edith Wharton and Nathaniel Hawthorne, particular texts like Moby-Dick, particular literary periods like the American Renaissance, or particular genres like the novel, this volume considers the multiple functions of filmed American literature as a cinematic genre in its own right-one that reflects the specific political and aesthetic priorities of different national and historical cinemas even as it plays a decisive role in defining American literature for a global audience.

Eleven essays analyze the adaptations of novels by eight popular writers such as Jane Austen and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and examine the ways in which those writers' themes are reinterpreted, updated and often misconstrued by the filmmakers who bring them to the screen. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Examining films about writers and acts of writing, The Writer on Film brilliantly refreshes some of the well-worn 'adaptation' debates by inviting film and literature to engage with each other trenchantly and anew – through acts of explicit configuration not adaptation.

Argues that understanding Huston’s film adaptations of literary works is essential to understanding his oeuvre as a filmmaker. John Huston as Adaptor makes the case that adaptation is the salient element in Huston’s identity as a filmmaker and that his early and deep attraction to the experience of reading informed his approach to film adaptation. Thirty-four of Huston’s thirty-seven films were adaptations of literary texts, and they stand as serious interpretations of literary works that could only be made by an astute reader of literature. Indeed, Huston asserted that a film director should be above all else a reader and that reading itself should be the intellectual and emotional basis for filmmaking. The seventeen essays in this volume not only address Huston as an adaptor, but also offer an approach to adaptation studies that has been largely overlooked. How an adaptor reads, the works to which he is drawn, and how his literary interpretations can be brought to the screen without relegating film to a subservient role are some of the issues addressed by the contributors. An introductory chapter identifies Huston as the quintessential Hollywood adaptor and argues that his skill at adaptation is the mark of his authorial signature. The chapters that follow focus on fifteen of Huston’s most important films, including The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The African Queen (1951), The Night of the Iguana (1964), Under the Volcano (1984), and The Dead (1987), and are divided into three areas: aesthetics and textuality; history and social context; and theory and psychoanalysis. By offering a more comprehensive account of the centrality of adaptation to Huston’s films, John Huston as Adaptor offers a greater understanding of Huston as a filmmaker. Douglas McFarland is a retired Professor of English at Flagler College. Wesley King is Assistant Professor of English at Flagler College.