Novels into film offers a unique look at how a story makes its way from the printed page to the screen.

Spanning comedy, drama, film noir, science fiction, westerns, action adventure, suspense and children's literature, this book offers a detailed survey of adaptations of film adaptations of novels.

For most people, film adaptation of literature can be summed up in one sentence: "The movie wasn't as good as the book." This volume undertakes to show the reader that not only is this evaluation not always true but sometimes it is intrinsically unfair. Movies based on literary works, while often billed as adaptations, are more correctly termed translations. A director and his actors translate the story from the written page into a visual presentation. Depending on the form of the original text and the chosen method of translation, certain inherent difficulties and pitfalls are associated with this change of medium. So often our reception of a book-based movie has more to do with our expectations and reading of the literature than with the job that the movie production did or did not do. Avoiding these biases and fairly evaluating any particular literary-based film takes an awareness of certain factors. Written with a formalistic rather than historical approach, this work presents a comprehensive guide to literature-based films, establishing a contextual and theoretical basis to help the reader understand the relationships between such movies and the original texts as well as the reader's own individual responses to these productions. To this end, it focuses on recognizing and appreciating the inherent difficulties encountered when basing a film on a literary work, be it a novel, novella, play or short story. Individual chapters deal with the specific issues and difficulties raised by each of these genres, providing an overview backed up by case studies of specific film translations. Films and literary works receiving this treatment include The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Lady Windemere's Fan by Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare's Henry V. Interspersed throughout the text are suggestions for activities the film student or buff can use to enhance his or her appreciation and understanding of the films. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

During the dreary month of March in Copenhagen in the early 1970s, a 25 year old American woman travels on a solitary quest to become, in her mind, a "woman of the world." In fact, she is lost, adrift, dislocated, not only from familiar surroundings but from her innermost being: "It was the era of rising feminist consciousness, but my mind had not yet caught up to my age and my consciousness was not the part of me that was rising up that winter." The memoir-like narrative of The Metal Girl is told by the mature woman who looks back on her younger, more naive self. Describing a timeless and highly personal milieu, she tells her story with intimate candor as it unfolds in a lyrical, ironic and insightful voice. She takes a room in a cheap pension, which, unbeknownst to her, is located on the edge of the city's red light district. The hotel is run by the enigmatic Elke, a quintessential blond, Scandinavian beauty, and Manfred, a German man of beefy proportions and portentous looks. Venturing out one evening to a jazz club, she meets Olaf, who attracts her with his handsome face, kindness and charm, and his friend Elizabeth, whom she finds the most alluring of all beautiful, poetic, intelligent, mysterious, wise and tragic. Her journey through these relationships climaxes late one night when she discovers the raison d'etre of everyone else and, even more surprising, the disillusioning truth about herself.

Paring a novel into a two-hour film is an arduous task for even the best screenwriters and directors. Often the resulting movies are far removed from the novel, sometimes to the point of being unrecognizable. Stanley Kubrick's adaptations have consistently been among the best Hollywood has to offer. Kubrick's film adaptations of three novels--Lolita, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket--are analyzed in this work. The primary focus is on the alterations in the characters and narrative structure, with additional attention to style, scope, pace, mood and meaning. Kubrick's adaptations simplify, impose a new visuality, reduce violence, and render the moral slant more conventional. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Examines how films are adapted into novels as a way to rethink the adaptation paradigm of film and literary studies.