The course
looks at adaptation as a cross-media phenomenon, which will be traced back to
the origins of the film medium in the late nineteenth century. The desire to
experience familiar stories and characters in different media forms transcends
generations. Film critic Margaret Farrand Thorp wrote in 1939 of the
“widespread human eagerness to experience the same story in as many media as
possible.” This impulse has only grown in recent years with the increasingly
vital role of franchises in an era of media convergence, whereby narratives
become replayed, extended and/or intertwined across films, television programs,
video games, comic books and other forms.
MCS 353/520 will begin with the traditional adaptive process of turning novels into film, the
theoretical concerns surrounding fidelity and medium-specificity, and the
critical debates to do with adaptation and authenticity. The course will then look at the
classical era of Hollywood in the 1930s through 1950s, using Orson Welles’
adaptation of Whit Masterson’s pulp novel Badge
of Evil in the 1958 film Touch of
Evil as a case study. This is followed by an examination of the 2011 film Green Lantern as an adaptation of the DC
comic book storyline “Secret Origin” by Geoff Johns. The more problematic
process of adapting such properties as board games, toy lines and video games
is explored in later weeks, as are the implications for the adaptive process
created by the prolific nature of digital special effects. Students will go
beyond narrative and aesthetic analysis in many weeks to consider the
industrial implications of adaptations, as well as what media theory can offer
us in studying how and why texts are adapted from one medium to another.
Email Prof. Davis at bdavis47@depaul.edu for more information about this course.
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