WHAT IS FILM ADAPTATION?
When compared with the approximately five hundred year history of printing-press culture, and the thousand year histories of manuscript cultures, the hundred year history of film seems remarkably brief. And yet, despite the relative newness of the technology of the cinema, moving images have quickly become the central conveyors of narrative in our culture. John Harrington explains, “While other art forms have taken centuries to develop, the span of a single lifetime has witnessed the birth and maturity of film. It seems axiomatic that such rapid development has occurred because of, not in spite of, the contributions of other art forms” (ix). To understand film, then, it is necessary to understand the way literary expression in particular has informed, extended, shaped, and limited it. Likewise, twentieth century literary expression reveals the influence of the cinema in its structures and styles, themes and motifs, and philosophical preoccupations By studying literary works of varying
