Film Adaptation in the Hollywood Studio Era

Author: Guerric DeBona

From the literary page to the silver screen--a historical and cultural approach

Cloth – $110

978-0-252-03541-8

Paper – $27

978-0-252-07737-1

Publication Date

Paperback: 05/13/2010

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About the Book

In this exceptional contribution to literary adaptation studies, Guerric DeBona shifts the focus away from determining a film's fidelity to the original source and redirects the conversation to the industrial choices, audience reception, and socio-cultural environment that contribute to the construction of the cinematic text.

Film Adaptation in the Hollywood Studio Era analyzes the intertextuality, cultural value, and authorship of four films from the 1920s to the 1950s based on canonical British and American novels. This unique methodological alternative to formalist "fidelity" approaches to literary adaptations blends archival research with DeBona's own deft and culturally rich interpretations of David Copperfield (1935), Heart of Darkness (1939), The Long Voyage Home (1940), and The Red Badge of Courage (1951).

About the Author

Guerric DeBona, O.S.B, is a professor of homiletics and communication at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in St. Meinrad, Indiana. He is the coauthor of Savior on the Silver Screen.

Reviews

"Recommended."--Choice

Blurbs

"Guerric DeBona's new book makes a powerful case that film adaptations are shaped as much by contextual forces as by their literary forbears. Once it is as widely read as it deserves to be, adaptation studies will never be the same."--Thomas Leitch, author of Film Adaptation and Its Discontents: From Gone with the Wind to The Passion of the Christ