After Fidelity

Joe Hughes
Joseph.hughes@unimelb.edu.au
Prelims
• 1. Overview of Subject Requirements + Course
Calendar
• 2. Our Intervention in adaptation studies.
Horace, Ars poetica ca. 15 BC
Either follow tradition or invent a consistent story. Achilles,
Medea, Orestes, and so on must be portrayed as they are
known to us in Greek literature, while new characters must be
handled with a consistency of their own. It is hard to deal
with general notions, such as anger, greed, and cowardice, so
as to individualize them for yourself and you, my friend Piso,
are quite right to dramatize some Homeric theme, where the
characters introduced have well-known traits, rather than
attempt something distinctly original. And yet, even in such
public property as the Homeric epics you may win private
rights by handling your material in an original fashion.
Ars poetica 119-26
Brief History
• George Bluestone, Novels into Film, (1957).
Brief History
• George Bluestone, Novels into Film, (1957).
• Institutional contexts:
• Shakespeare studies
Brief History
• George Bluestone, Novels into Film, (1957).
• Institutional contexts:
• Shakespeare studies
• Covert film studies
Brief History
• George Bluestone, Novels into Film, (1957).
• Institutional contexts:
• Shakespeare studies
• Covert film studies
• One implication of this history:
• The discourse of fidelity
• Shakespeare
• Institutional pressure of literary history
Problems with fidelity
• Dudley Andrew: “Unquestionably the most frequent and
tiresome discussion of adaptation (and of film and
literature as well) concerns fidelity and transformation.”
--Concepts in Film Theory, (1984) pg. 100.
Robert Stam: “The language of criticism sealing with the
film adaptation of novels has often been profoundly
moralistic, awash in terms such as infidelity, betrayal,
deformation, violation, vulgarization, and desecration, each
accusation carrying its specific charge of outraged
negativity.”
--Stam, “Beyond Fidelity” in Naremore, Film Adaptation, pg. 54.
Thomas Leitch: too “readerly” rather than “writerly;”
“passive” rather than “active;” a model of consumption
rather than a model of production.
--Film Adaptation & its Discontents, pg. 11-16.
Problems with fidelity
• Dudley Andrew: “Unquestionably the most frequent and
tiresome discussion of adaptation (and of film and literature
as well) concerns fidelity and transformation.”
--Concepts in Film Theory (1984), pg. 100.
• Robert Stam: “The language of criticism dealing with the film
adaptation of novels has often been profoundly moralistic,
awash in terms such as infidelity, betrayal, deformation,
violation, vulgarization, and desecration, each accusation
carrying its specific charge of outraged negativity.”
--Stam, “Beyond Fidelity” in Naremore, Film Adaptation (2000), pg.
54.
Thomas Leitch: too “readerly” rather than “writerly;”
“passive” rather than “active;” a model of consumption rather
than a model of production.
--Film Adaptation & its Discontents, pg. 11-16.
Problems with fidelity
• Dudley Andrew: “Unquestionably the most frequent and
tiresome discussion of adaptation (and of film and literature
as well) concerns fidelity and transformation.”
--Concepts in Film Theory (1984), pg. 100.
• Robert Stam: “The language of criticism sealing with the film
adaptation of novels has often been profoundly moralistic,
awash in terms such as infidelity, betrayal, deformation,
violation, vulgarization, and desecration, each accusation
carrying its specific charge of outraged negativity.”
--Stam, “Beyond Fidelity” in Naremore, Film Adaptation (2000),
pg. 54.
• Thomas Leitch: too “readerly” rather than “writerly;”
“passive” rather than “active;” a model of consumption
rather than a model of production.
--Film Adaptation & its Discontents (2012), pg. 11-16.
The beyond?
Stam: Translation, Transformation, and Dialogue
• “If fidelity is an inadequate trope, we must then ask,
What tropes might be more appropriate? One trope, I
would suggest, is “translation.” The trope of
adaptation as translation suggests a principle effort of
intersemiotic transposition, with the inevitable losses
and gains typical of any translation.”
--Stam, “Beyond Fidelity,” (2000), pg. 62.
The beyond?
Stam: Translation, Transformation and Dialogue
• “If fidelity is an inadequate trope, we must then ask,
What tropes might be more appropriate? One trope, I
would suggest, is “translation.” The trope of
adaptation as translation suggests a principle effort of
intersemiotic transposition, with the inevitable losses
and gains typical of any translation.
--Stam, “Beyond Fidelity,” (2000), pg. 62.

Basic principle: removal of evaluative language and

implied moralism.
The beyond?
+:
reading, rewriting, critique, transfiguration,
actualization, transmodalization, signifying,
performance, dialogization, cannibalization,
reinvisioning, incarnation, reincarnation, accentuation,
reaccentuation, curation, replication, celebration,
liberation, adjustment, compression, expansion,
correction, updating, superimposition, imitation,
neoclassical imitation, revision, metacommentary,
deconstruction, borrowing, intersection, colonization.
Principle 1
1. James Naremore:
“The study of adaptation needs to be joined with the
study of recycling, remaking, and every other form of
retelling in the age of mechanical reproduction and
electronic communication. By this means, adaptation
will become part of a general theory of repetition, and
adaptation study will move from the margins to the
center of contemporary media studies.”
--Film Adaptation (2000), pg. 15.
Repetition and Difference
1. James Naremore:
“The study of adaptation needs to be joined with the
study of recycling, remaking, and every other form of
retelling in the age of mechanical reproduction and
electronic communication. By this means, adaptation
will become part of a general theory of repetition, and
adaptation study will move from the margins to the
center of contemporary media studies.”
--Film Adaptation (2000), pg. 15.

Media theory as a theory of repetition and difference.

Principle 2
2. Christa Albrecht-Crane
“A stubborn insistence on fidelity certainly has kept
adaptation theory from maturing, but another central
reason for this failure must be its unwillingness to allow
the term ‘adaptation’ to broaden and expand. It is
simple enough to suggest that an adaptation is a film
based on a novel, play, or short story, but what about a
novel that is based on a film, or a video game based on
either a novel or film? What about a film based on a
video game, and a Broadway play based on a movie?”
-- Albrecht-Crane, Adaptation Studies (2010), pg.
12.
Parenthesis:
Jonze/Kaufman: Adaptation and desire.
TOC for Crane and Naremore: almost all “novels
into film.”

Neither “move from the margins to the center of

contemporary media studies,” nor pursue the
kinds of questions Albrecht-Crane raised: “what
about a novel that is based on a film, or a video
game based on either a novel or film? What about
a film based on a video game, and a Broadway
play based on a movie?”
 Our question/intervention:
How to talk about adaptation?

Adaptation as a general theory of media, as a

cultural practice, as a historical phenomenon.