Essay Of Adaptation In Film

Adaptation in film industry has not received much attention in the past. Rarely has the issue of adaptation been covered in such a way. Andrew’s attempt to approach this complex issue is simply to show adamant scholars that it is possible to adapt literary works. Looking at the article’s title, one would never assume its overall aim. It was first published in 1984 in Concepts in Film Theory. From the very outset, Dudley Andrew probes the mysteries surrounding the loose use of the term adaptation in film. He gives brief and yet a wide scope introduction about the intricate usage of adaptation and its representation to film studies. Adaptation is akin to “interpretation theory, for in a strong sense adaptation is the appropriation of a meaning from a prior text” (Braudy and Cohen 453). For decades, …show more content…
In some instances, he examines the fidelity of the adapted work, but nowhere talks about the infidelity that might appear in films. Many adapted films violate almost every aspect of their original stories. For example, there are multiple adaptations of the notorious English novel Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. In 2010, Rob Letterman directed the most recent adaptation. In the film, the narrative takes a total different tone. There are several moments in the film that relate to our contemporary time. In short, it is a total parody of the novel in humorous action. This sort of adaptation does not fall in either one of the three modes that Andrew outlines in his article. It also brings the new work into question. The issue here is that the adapted work has frequently been compared to the original story. Andrew argues that such comparison ought not to be made to determine the efficacy or even desirability of adaptations. Instead, they ought to be done as a way of appreciating the two works of