SFE20911 English: Adaptation - Turning Literature into Film (Autumn 2011)

The course is connected to the following study programs

Obligatory subject within the 90 study credits English Extension Course.
May be taken as part of the Bachelor in Society, Language and Culture.

Lecture Semester

English Extension Course: 1st Semester (Autumn)
Bachelor in Society, Language and Culture: 3rd or 5th Semester (Autumn)

The student's learning outcomes after completing the course

The students will become acquainted with filmic adaptations and film studies within the context of Anglo-American studies. The students will come to understand how adaptations enable us to rework literature and rethink attitudes about issues of gender, ethnicity, class, history, and identity. Becoming familiar with terms and theory pertaining to film studies and adaptation studies will enable the students to make comprehensive comparative analyses of film and fiction. In the Norwegian national curriculum (LK 06), the subject curricula for English emphasise the use of visual texts through competence aims such as multimodal text production and film analysis, and the course will equip the students with the necessary knowledge to teach film, adaptation, and aspects of multimodality.

Content

The course gives an introduction to the theory and the history of filmic adaptation, with particular emphasis on adaptations of canonical British literature. Lectures and seminars will focus on the interaction between literature and film and discuss cinema's contributions to the development of new literary genres and techniques and to the current interest in and continued popularity of many literary works. The course material consists of a selection of adaptations, their literary originals, and related theoretical texts, all illustrating trends and developments within the fields of fiction and film.

Forms of teaching and learning

Lectures, seminars and tutorials.

Coursework requirements - conditions for taking the exam

Students will give an oral presentation of a filmic adaptation of their own choice.  The presentation shall include an analysis of aspects of both the adaptation and its literary original, as well as relevant theory. A written bibliography of sources made use of is to be submitted. The coursework requirement must be met and approved before the student can sit for the exam.

Examination

A five-hour written examination.
Permitted aids: English-English dictionary. The grading is A-F.

Course evaluation

Literature

 

Films

Apocalypse Now (1979) Francis Ford Coppola

 

The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) Karel Reisz

 

Jude (1996) Michael Winterbottom

 

Hamlet (2000) Michael Almereyda

 

A Cock and Bull Story (2006) Michael Winterbottom

 

Alice in Wonderland (2010) Tim Burton

 

Novels and Plays

Hamlet (1601) William Shakespeare

 

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759- 1769) Laurence Sterne (excerpts)

 

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) Lewis Carroll (excerpts)

 

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) Lewis Carroll (excerpts)

 

Jude the Obscure (1895) Thomas Hardy

 

Heart of Darkness (1899/1902) Joseph Conrad

 

The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969) John Fowles (excerpts)

 

Theoretical texts

Lothe, Jakob. Narrative in Fiction and Film: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.1-101, 157-196.

 

Theoretical texts to be found in the Course Compendium

 

Andrew, Dudley. 'Adaptation' [1984], in Film Theory and Criticism, ed. Gerald Mast, Marshall Cohen and Leo Braudy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 420-28.

 

Church Gibson, Pamela. 'Fewer Weddings and More Funerals: Changes in the Heritage Film' in British Cinema of the 90s, ed. Robert Murphy. London: British Film Institute, 2000, pp. 115-124. 

 

Constandinides, Costas. From Film Adaptation to Post-Celluloid Adaptation. New York: Continuum, 2010, pp. 10-18.

 

Eikhenbaum, Boris. 'Literature and Cinema' [1926], in Russian Formalism, ed. Stephen Bann and John Bowlt. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1973, pp. 122-27. 

 

Lodge, David. Working with Structuralism. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981, pp. 95-105.

 

Lunenfeld, Peter. 'The Myths of Interactive Cinema', in Narrative Across Media, ed. Marie-Laure Ryan. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004, pp. 377-390.

 

McMahan, Alison. The Films of Tim Burton. Animating Live Action in Contemporary Hollywood. New York: Continuum, 2005, pp. 20 - 44.

 

Mulvey, Laura. 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' [1975], in Film Theory and Criticism, eds. L. Braudy, M. Cohen and G. Mast. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 746-757.

 

Rampley, Matthew. 'The Rise and Fall and Rise of the Author', in Exploring Visual Culture, ed. M. Rampley. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005, pp. 149-162.

 

Rowe, Katherine. ''Remember me': Technologies of Memory in Michael Almereyda's Hamlet', in Shakespeare the Movie II, ed. Richard Burt and Lynda E. Boose. London: Routledge, 2003, pp. 37-55.  

 

 Additional material discussed during lectures and posted on the Internet will also be required reading.