Literature and Cinema Seminar. Professor: Lorrain Ledwith.

Student: Natalia Belén Acevedo. Date: July 11th, 2016.

Resignifying Jane Austen’s Emma in Heckerling’s Clueless

The processes of adaptation and appropriation of a literary text into a film is a practice
within the domain of transtextuality (Stam: 2005). According to Gerard Genette (1989),
transtextuality is a relationship between two or more texts, overt or not, in different
orders of abstraction. One form of transtextuality is hypertextuality, defined as the
relation between a hypertext (B) derived from a hypotext (A). The hypertext may or
may not be clearly correlated with the hypotext, but the former could not exist without
the latter. Bakhtin’s model of dialogism may bear relevance for film studies (Stam:
2005, 26), and thus, a narrative structure, whether literary or filmic, might be said to be
conceived in relation to another previous structure (Kristeva: 1986,35). Within the
domain of film studies, both adaptation and appropriation place the filmic product as the
hypertext, and the literary work which provided the sourcetext as the hypotext.

Concerning what has been explained above; a further distinction needs to be

acknowledged between adaptation and appropriation: whereas the first one establishes a
relationship with a sourcetext, the second one entails a definitive swerve from the
original text (Sanders, 2006). Such is the case of Jane Austen’s Emma as the hypotext
for the filmic hypertext Clueless (1995) by Heckerling, in which a transposition of time
and geography is evinced whilst the core elements of the novel seem to be preserved.
Regarding these facts, the thesis of this paper seeks to explore how the knowledge of
Jane Austen’s Emma enriches the watching of Heckerling’s Clueless. This will be
explored through the analysis of the geographical and temporal transposition; the
characters –both in the novel and the film–; the variation of register in the language; and
the plot; as well as the examination of relevant scenes in the film.

The transformation of the temporal and the geographical parameters is seen in Clueless
from the first scene. The distinguished society of Emma, located in London, Bath,
Clifton, Bristol and Birmingham, in the first years of the19th century, is transposed into
an élite in the cosmopolitan 1990’s Beverly Hills represented in Clueless. Emma, the
protagonist of said Jane Austen’s novel, is introduced in the narrative as “rich [and]
with a comfortable home” (Austen: 1994, 1). In the film, this is echoed by Cher’s –
Emma’s 1990’s counterpart– dwelling in an immaculate two-storey mansion,
refurbished with well-trimmed and elegant ferns. Whereas in Emma “balls” are given at
the Crown Inn, a particularly pompous dancing place (Austen: 1994, 156), with

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Literature and Cinema Seminar. Professor: Lorrain Ledwith.
Student: Natalia Belén Acevedo. Date: July 11th, 2016.

someone appointed to singing and playing the piano, in Clueless, these prestigious
parties are reconfigured in renowned pools and discotheques. As early as the opening
sequence, the viewer is presented with a group of female friends –or girlfriends, as they
are called in the movie–driving a Jeep, shopping at the most trendy designers’, and
enjoying luxurious pool parties, as they taste frappuccinos and cherries, and talk on
their page phones (the mobile phone of those days). The extradiagetic use of upbeat
rock music underlying this scene contributes to the mutation of the temporal and
geographical. To a certain extent, this relocation of time and place challenges the
sourcetext as well as its depiction in the reader’s mind. The remodelling of a 19th
century’s story into a contemporary landscape may recreate the literary text to provoke
expectation and surprise in the reader and the spectator, and also, to perpetuate the
pleasure the novel generated in the first place.

The genre of the film, namely a comedy intended for teenagers, is evoked by
maintaining the usual generic conventions. The mise en scène of the opening sequence,
mainly performed in a high-key lightning, displaying colourful images of teenage pool
parties, as well as the bold type employed to convey the name of the film, may be
considered as standard within the teenage comedy genre. In this sense, it may possibly
not differ from the hypotext Emma, since the novel was, in the context of production,
probably intended for young (female) readers. One of the comic elements in this first
scene is the fact that Cher, asserts, in a voice over, that she has a normal life for a
teenage girl: she wakes up in the morning, brushes her teeth and chooses her outfit for
the day (Heckerling, 1995:1). However, it is not every teenage girl’s case that her
selection of outfit is normally done by a computer programme that helps her decide
which garments match best. Although the viewers’ generic expectations might not be
challenged, the (re)portraying of the 19th century’s Emma into the 1990’s Cher may be
sufficiently stimulating and enriching for a Jane Austen’s reader.

As for Emma Woodhouse’s representation, it is reformulated in the character of Cher,

embodied by Alicia Silverstone. The same qualities of being “handsome … and rich,
with (…) a happy disposition” (Austen, 1994:1) are impersonated in both Emma and
Cher. Emma’s wit is reflected in her remarks in conversation and also when she solves
Mr. Elton’s charades (Austen, 1994:56-8). Nevertheless, this personality trait is not
evident in Cher, as her scoring excellent marks is due to her persuading teachers by
playing the victim of a calamitous situation. In this point, it might be argued that when

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Literature and Cinema Seminar. Professor: Lorrain Ledwith.
Student: Natalia Belén Acevedo. Date: July 11th, 2016.

Cher corrects her stepbrother’s fiancée when she misquotes Hamlet (Heckerling,
1995:44), she does so by reciting what Mel Gibson said in the movie, demonstrating her
lack of knowledge. As for propriety and good manners, idiosyncratic of Jane Austen,
they seem to be translated not only in the ladylike attitude of Cher’s, but also in her
cautiousness about fashion and personal appearance. It might then be purported that the
director veers away from the intelligent type that Emma represents in the sourcetext to
turn Cher into almost the stereotype of an empty-headed teenage girl. As Kristeva
(1986) explains, the literary meaning can always be (re)elaborated, and so Emma’s
Emma representation is revised and redefined in Clueless’s Cher.

In addition to her fashion awareness, the aspect of being somewhat conceited, and the
ability to cajole people so as to achieve their aims is conserved both in Emma and Cher.
Like Emma, Cher charms her mentors and teachers, becoming a sort of spoiled child, so
as to score the high qualifications she craves for. The main purpose that her good marks
serve is staying in her father’s good books, almost bordering the representation of a
“daddy’s little girl”. By the same token, Emma, in her childhood days used to say that “I
may do so-and-so, papa says I may” (Austen: 1994, 372). Cher also inspects the food
her father eats, since his cholesterol levels are high, and she admonishes him to eat
healthily adding the apposition Daddy –the contemporary equivalent of papa– in a
tender way. As for Emma, her emotional codependence with her father is apparent
throughout most of the novel, and towards its ending, the omniscient narrator reveals
more about this aspect of her: “Marrying in fact would not do for her. It would be
incompatible with what she owed to her father, and what she felt for him” (Austen,
1994: 334). As regards Emma’s representation in Cher, it might be posited that the
many similarities are accurately interpolated. Thus, appropriation may be said to
preserve most of the core characteristics of Emma, so as to resuscitate her in the context
of reception, and stimulate the reader’s and spectator’s minds.

What may supplement value in the film is the depiction of Emma’s Mr. Knighley in
Clueless’s Josh. Mr. Knightley, a long-time family friend of the Woodhouse’s, is ever
omnipresent at Hartfield. In the film, this is accomplished by portraying Josh as a sort of
stepbrother to Cher, –in fact, the son of her father’s former partner. This reconfiguration
of Josh could have been inspired by the exchange Emma and Mr.Knightley have in one
of the balls they attended. In this situation, Emma entices Mr.Knightley to dance with
her, and she pinpoints the reasons:

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Literature and Cinema Seminar. Professor: Lorrain Ledwith.
Student: Natalia Belén Acevedo. Date: July 11th, 2016.
‘Will you?’, said he, offering his hand.

‘Indeed, I will. You have shown that you can dance. And you know that we are not really so
much brother and sister as to make it at all improper.’

‘Brother and sister! –no, indeed.’ (Austen, 1994:266)

It might also be acknowledged that the same is hinted at during a conversation between
Cher and Josh in the film. While sitting on the sofa and watching TV, a medium shot of
Josh in a high-key lightning set, retorts to Cher why she would like to have a brother-
type in her house tagging along with her (Heckerling:1995,60). As Cher replicates that
they are not brother and sister, an inevitable bell might ring in the reader’s mind,
enriching the viewer’s watching of the film.

Additionally, Josh’s initiative of staying at Cher’s house is also related to the fact that
he aspires to become a lawyer. This leads him to choose Cher’s father, a litigator, as his
tutor. Nevertheless, Josh emphasises at the end of the film his interest in studying law in
such a repetitive way –and even more so, in a stutter– that he subtly transmits the idea
that training as a lawyer was merely an excuse to be close to Cher. This scene, one that
may be regarded as evoking the transparence of the character’s thoughts, is shot in a
high-key lightning to be coherent with this idea of intelligibility (Heckerling: 1995,88).
Before Josh confesses his reasons for staying at Cher’s, a long-shot camera exposes
both protagonists sitting on the landing of a staircase from a low-angle, creating a point
of view that seems to coincide with a third-person omniscient narrator. It could also
suggest to the spectator that he is about to climb that staircase and eavesdrop on Cher’s
and Josh’s conversation. As the scene progresses, the camera moves onto a medium
long-shot to finally focus on a medium-close up to listen to Josh’s real reasons for
staying at her house. Something of the same tenor is the case with Mr. Knightley;
however the latter is more explicit and acknowledges that “he [has] been in love with
[Emma] ever since [she was] thirteen at least” (Austen, 1994:372). The filmic hypertext
might then be said to creatively readjust Mr. Knightley’s reasons for spending his time
at the Woodhouse’s.

Furthermore, Mr. Knightley and Josh act as mentors of Emma and Cher respectively:
Mr. Knightley scolds Emma when she does wrong and so does Josh with Cher. For
instance, when Emma is disrespectful towards Miss Bates –a simple minded lady of a
poor condition– by defying her to say “only three [dull things] at once” (Austen,
1994:299), Mr. Knightley rebukes her stating that he “cannot see [her] acting wrong”

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Literature and Cinema Seminar. Professor: Lorrain Ledwith.
Student: Natalia Belén Acevedo. Date: July 11th, 2016.

(Austen, 1994: 302). This situation might be alluded to in the film, when Cher asks
Lucy, the maid in the house, for a suitable shirt what would make her respectable-
looking for her driving test. When Cher later reminds Lucy to have the gardener clear
out some bush, Lucy suggests that she do so. Nevertheless, Cher claims that she does
not speak “Mexican” like the maid and the gardener do, and this infuriates Lucy as she
informs her that “I not Mexican [sic]” (Heckerling, 1995:71). Josh, being a witness to
the dispute, explains to Cher that the maid’s country of origin is El Salvador, and her
confusion of two different countries might be as offensive and astonishing as if
someone considered her to live below Sunset (Heckerling, 1995:71). Thus, the
appropriation of what was considered disrespectful in Jane Austen’s time appears to be
reevaluated into the contemporary situation of Hispanic immigrants in the United States,
while at the same time, Josh seems to preserve his representation as a mentor like Mr.
Knightley did.

The match-making element, one of the tenets of the novel, is appropriated in a different
way in the film. In the novel, Emma admits her natural ability to succeed in match-
making, claiming that Mr. Weston and her former governess, Miss Taylor, finally tied
the knot because of her. To be more precise, if she “had not promoted Mr. Weston’s
visits [at her house], and given many little encouragements, it might not have come to
anything after all” (Austen, 1994:8). Not so similar is what happens with Cher in the
filmic hypertext, as her aim is to match two lonely teachers, Mr. Hall and Miss. Geist,
mainly to contribute especially to the man’s happiness and therefore, the subsequent
raising of her marks (Heckerling, 1995:11). This scene in the film is accomplished with
a voice over in which Cher considers the possible matches for Mr. Hall while the
camera wanders unsteadily in the teachers’ room, as if Cher herself were irrupting into
the place. The high-key lightning, so typical of Hollywood comedies, and the medium
shot is preserved. Finally, after searching table after table in the room for a suitable
match for the said teacher, the camera –or Cher– lays her lens –or eyes– on Miss Geist.
To promote this match, her best friend Deonne –to be analyzed later, probably the
hypertextual representation of Miss Taylor– helps her write love poems on scented
postcards and place them in Miss Geist’s pigeonhole. In consequence, the match-
making might be re-envisioned as something that Cher does for the first time, whereas
Emma purports to have done it previously without her being conscious of it. This subtle

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Literature and Cinema Seminar. Professor: Lorrain Ledwith.
Student: Natalia Belén Acevedo. Date: July 11th, 2016.

twist in the plot may account for the inherent re-creation of meaning that appropriation
intends for the sourcetext.

Emma’s best friend, Harriet, an orphan whom she meets at Mrs. Goddard’s school and
decides to “adopt” as a companion, is represented in the film in the character of Tai. As
Cher states that Tai is so “adorably clueless” (Heckerling, 1995:22), the camera traces
Tai’s figure from bottom to top, revealing that she is awkwardly dressed, as Cher avows
that her mission is clear and she needs to foster the sense of fashion and proper language
in Tai. In Emma, Harriet is described as follows: “Harriet certainly was not clever, but
she had a sweet, docile, grateful disposition, was totally free from conceit, and only
desiring to be guided by anyone she looked up to” (Austen,1994:18). The beseechingly
way in which Tai contemplates Cher may be said to convey the idea of “desiring to be
guided by anyone she looked up to”. As Cher affirms that she wants to use her
popularity at school for a good cause, she embraces Tai as her new friend. Emma first
felt interested in Harriet on account of her beauty, being of “a sort of which Emma
particularly admired” (Austen:1994,16), but this appears to be transposed into Cher’s
interest in saving Tai from ridicule and lack-of-fashion sense. Whilst the friendship
between Emma and Harriet is echoed in Cher and Tai, what motivates it might be
appropriated in a different sense, revaluing the significance of friendship differently in
the context of reception. (Good point!)

Cher’s match-making tendencies continue with Tai, and just as Emma’s backfires, so
does Cher’s plan. As Emma educates Harriet to develop a better sense of self and aspire
to seduce gentlemen like Mr. Elton instead of the farmer Mr. Martin whom Harriet
fancies (Austen:1994,22), so does Cher guide Tai to match herself with Elton. In the
film, it can be seen that Tai easily bonds with the skater boy (Heckerling:1995,24) when
they meet in the cafeteria. They both discover how many interests they share, just as
Harriet finds herself attached to Mr. Martin. However, Cher promotes Tai’s match with
Elton by suggesting that he put his arm around Tai when taking a photograph. In this
point, it might be posited that Emma’s picture of Harriet, which was intended for Mr.
Elton, becomes the photograph that Cher snaps for Elton. Some scenes later in the film,
Elton, Tai and Cher dispute over who will be driven home in which car
(Heckerling,1995:39), and in a likewise manner, so do Emma, her father, Mr. Elton and
John Knightley about the carriages (Austen:1994,103). As both Emma and Cher are to
be driven and accompanied by Mr. Elton and Elton respectively, the match-making they

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Literature and Cinema Seminar. Professor: Lorrain Ledwith.
Student: Natalia Belén Acevedo. Date: July 11th, 2016.

intended in the beginning seems to ironically backlash as the man they intended for their
friends falls in love with them. In the filmic hypertext, a low-key lightning of the
medium-close-up shot of Cher and Elton sets the scene for Elton’s confession of his
doing everything for Tai just to please Cher. Besides the analogy of the match-making,
and its unwanted results, the transposition of portraits and carriages from the 19th
century into Nikon’s photographs and cars of the 1990’s, might be said to echo the
possibilities the sourcetext has to reinvent itself through the hypertext.

The language of propriety that Jane Austen so well developed in her prose may be
considered to be present in the filmic hypertext. Although what prevails in the film is
teenage slang, there are some subtle instances in which good-level vocabulary is
advocated. For instance, the scene in which Cher forces Tai to exercise; she utters the
word “sporadically”. As a Tai in medium-shot acknowledges her not knowing the
meaning of the said word, Cher claims that they have to work on her vocabulary
(Heckerling,1995:27). Another example is the scene when Deonne asks her boyfriend
not to call her “woman” (Heckerling: 1995,23) and instead, he calls her “Miss Deonne”.
When Cher’s voice over is employed in the film, signifiers such as “capricious” and
“ensemble” can be listened to. Therefore, it might be proposed that although the formal
register of Jane Austen seems to be lost in most of the film, it is subtly revindicated and
echoed in some selected scenes, and this may provoke delight and rejoice in the viewers
who have read the novel. (differences between telling and showing in each medium)

As has been stated above, the character of Deonne in the film might be regarded as Miss
Taylor’s –Emma’s governess– counterpart. Since the film begins with Deonne already
in a love relationship, so does the novel commence with commentaries about the
wedding of Mr. Weston and Miss Taylor, turning her into Mrs. Weston. Additionally,
the degree of closeness the friendship between Emma and Mrs. Weston bears is
somehow echoed in the proximity Cher and Deonne share. The hypertext may reinforce
how both friends forge matches whereas in the hypotext, it is only Emma who
contributes to match-making. Once Mr. Hall and Miss Geist are a couple, Cher and
Deonne mirror their teachers’ love as they stand cheek-to-cheek gazing at the match
they promoted (Heckerling,1995:18). Consequently, the portraying of Mrs. Weston in
Deonne resignifies the closeness female friendships have in the context of reception,
equally engaging in the same activities.

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Literature and Cinema Seminar. Professor: Lorrain Ledwith.
Student: Natalia Belén Acevedo. Date: July 11th, 2016.

As Sanders (2006) purports, not only similarities and differences need to be analysed
when juxtaposing a sourcetext with its appropriation, but also omissions as the result of
pruning need to be reflected upon. Such seems to be the case with the character of Jane
Fairfax, namely Emma’s object of envy. The omniscient narrator in Emma informs so in
the following excerpt:

Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a difficult question to answer; Mr. Knightley had
once told her it was because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman which she
wanted to be thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly refuted at the time,
there were moments of self-examination in which her conscience could not acquit her.
(Austen,1994: 130).
Even though there is no explicit character in the film that Cher envies, she does not
seem to have a good rapport with Amber, the redhead with whom she always quarrels.
The said character might be seen as the embodiment of Jane Fairfax, but at the same
time, it is Amber who engages Elton’s attentions in a very similar way as does Mrs.
Elton. Furthermore, her grotesque and vulgar garments seem to hint at the lack of taste
that Mrs. Elton represents in the sourcetext. Regardless of whom Amber really portrays,
it might be argued that either the character of Jane Fairfax is omitted in the filmic
appropriation, or she is reconfigured as blending with Mrs. Elton, and finally embodied
in Amber. What lies at the heart of the analysis of this character is how appropriation
dialogues with the informing source in a resonant and dissonant way at the same time,
mobilizing different ideas in a reader or spectator informed about the intertextual
relationship.

Another thought-provoking aspect of appropriation is how it can be intertwined with the

social conflicts of the context of reception. Frank Churchill, the first gentleman Emma
regards as a possible object of love (Austen, 1994:95), is interpolated in the character of
the elusive Christian in the film. As soon as he steps into the classroom (Heckerling,
1995:47), the camera stops some long seconds in a medium shot that later moves closer
to project a medium-close up that reveals the attractiveness of Christian. While Cher
swoons at the pace of the romantic extradiagetic music of the scene, she confesses how
much she would like to have a boyfriend. The inconstancy of Frank Churchill, who flirts
with Emma but never concretes any kind of relationship, seems to be present also in
Christian. Nevertheless, Frank Churchill’s unstable feelings are due to his secret
engagement with Jane Fairfax, whereas Christian’s reason for elusiveness is the fact that
he is gay. From the context of reception, the 1990’s were an era in which the gay and

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Literature and Cinema Seminar. Professor: Lorrain Ledwith.
Student: Natalia Belén Acevedo. Date: July 11th, 2016.

lesbian movement was becoming stronger in the United States. Hence, what is
highlighted in the appropriated text is the topical issue of the time, adding to the
interests of the contemporary audience.

Appropriation in the context of reception may also be evinced in the hedonistic parties
the teenagers enjoy in the film. Particularly, most of them smoke marijuana in those
parties; a common phenomenon in the 1990’s as well as nowadays. The same could be
said of the excessive alcohol drinking that is depicted in the film. While the balls that
Jane Austen described engaged the attendants in dancing, eating, and piano music, the
context of reception adapts these social gatherings in the tone they are usually delivered
today. Once again, appropriation appears to adjoin current events and tendencies in its
reframing of the informing text, possibly with the aim of enriching the reader and the
viewer with the idea of how substantial the changes have been since the 19th century
with regard to leisure and enjoyment.

As well as match-making, the triumph of understanding seems to be another relevant

theme in Jane Austen’s Emma. When Harriet declares her highest aspirations to marry
Mr. Knightley, Emma is stunned into taking a detached view of the situation and her
own part in it (Bradbury, 2000: xi). To be more precise, her culminating insight, that is
to say, “It darted through her with the speed of an arrow that Mr. Knightley must marry
no one but herself!” (Austen, 1994:328), is also perpetuated in the film as Cher realizes
she has always been in love with Josh and would not want Tai to be his girlfriend. The
scene of her realization unfolds as she circles a fountain in a park, the camera being at a
high angle and thus diminishing the image of Cher as if she were a victim of her
thoughts (Heckerling, 1995:78). The said scene is also interspersed with flashbacks of
memories of Josh and her. The camera lowers as she finishes circling the fountain –a
possible analogy to the ideas ‘going round’ in her head– and finally stops in a medium-
long shot of Cher. At the same time, in the background, multicoloured shafts of lights
are suddenly turned on, materializing the enlightment Cher has just experienced as she,
in a voice over, exclaims that she is in love with Josh.

Cher’s realization of being darted with Cupid’s arrows as Emma seems to imply in her
own acknowledgement (Austen, 1994:328), leads her to contribute for the welfare of the
rest, devoting her time to refugees’ campaigns as well as helping her father with his
work. Allegedly, this brings her closer to Josh, and once he, in a stammer, subtly

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Literature and Cinema Seminar. Professor: Lorrain Ledwith.
Student: Natalia Belén Acevedo. Date: July 11th, 2016.

indicates that he is also in love, and his being at Cher’s was more related to her presence
there rather than his studying law, he finally seals the scene kissing
her(Heckerling:1995,90). At that moment, Cher suggests, in a voice over, that the
spectator “can imagine what happened after that”. Although the following scene
projects the wedding of Mr. Hall and Miss Geist, the very final scene, in which the
viewer is presented with a close-up of a French kiss of the new teenage couple, it might
be implied that Cher’s virginity has been lost the previous night, after the kiss, just as
the voice over seemed to hint. The appropriation of the marriage between Emma and
Mr. Knightley is reconfigured in the love relationship and its possible consummation
between Cher and Josh. Thus, this contemporary twist in the story might be said to turn
it more appealing to a teenage audience.

As a conclusion, it might be drawn that the filmic hypertext of Jane Austen’s Emma
makes the latter more appealing to new audiences. Furthermore, the creative artistic
capacity of reinventing and readjusting the sourcetext through different variations,
while, at the same time, maintaining some similarities, seems to perpetuate the literary
text, as well as the pleasure it had transmitted in the first place. The challenge these
transpositions provoke in the reader and the spectator, as if it were a game of
remodelling one’s knowledge of the sourcetext into a different text, might be highly
stimulating and thought-provoking. The addition of contemporary social conflicts may
turn the hypertext into an enticing ‘food-for-thought’ product. However, the possibility
of noticing the reinvention and (re)elaboration of the literary text into the filmic text can
only be achieved if the knowledge of the informing source is available to the spectator.
The enrichment and better comprehension that Jane Austen’s Emma adds to
Heckerling’s Clueless mimics Emma’s and Cher’s triumph of understanding.

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Literature and Cinema Seminar. Professor: Lorrain Ledwith.
Student: Natalia Belén Acevedo. Date: July 11th, 2016.

Works cited

Austen, Jane (1994). Emma. (orig. 1815). Wordsworth Classics: Hertfordshire.

Bradbury, Nicola (2000). Introduction. Wordsworth Classics: Hertfordshire, pp. IV-

XIV.

British Council Reading a Film (2004) “Film Study Guide: Reading a Film (Newsletter
of the British Council’s Literature and Film Department).

Genette, Gerard (1989). Palimpsestos: la literatura en segundo grado, Taurus, 1989.

Hayward, Susan (2006)3rd ed. Cinema studies: the key concepts. London: Routledge.

Kristeva, Julia (1986). The Kristeva Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, pp.34-61.

Pulverness, Alan (2002) “Film and Literature: two ways of telling” in Literature
Matters (Newsletter of the British Council’s Literature and Film Department) Issue 32
Winter 2002. Also available from: http://british council.org/arts-literature-literature-
matters-edition-32-film-and-lit.htlm (Accessed August 24th 2008)

Sanders, Julie (2006). Adaptation and Appropriation. London and New York:
Routeledge.

Stam, Robert and Raengo, Alessandra (2005) (eds.) Literature and Film: A Guide to the
Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation, Wiley-Blackwell.

Stam, Robert and Alessandra Raengo (eds.) (2005) A Companion to Literature and
Film, Wiley-Blackwell.

Villarejo, Amy (2007) Film Studies: The Basics. Abingdon: Routledge.

Visual text

Heckerling, Amy (1995). Clueless. United States: Paramount Pictures.

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