"That's Not in the Book!": Narrative Discord from Text to Film
Biographical Sketch
Carol Harvest is an assistant professor of English and is also the Communications / Foreign Language department chair at EFSC. She has an MA in English and an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Central Florida.
Dr. Wendy McLallen is an assistant professor of English and is also the Writing Center Coordinator at EFSC. She has a PhD in English from Florida State University.
Type of Presentation
Individual presentation
Brief Description of Presentation
We want to address narrative discord that occurs when filmmakers make particular choices concerning a protagonist's state of mind. To effect cultural change, we argue that the reader/viewer must have agency in analyzing the narration of novels and short stories; while film is critical for exposure of texts, there is a risk that the viewer will lazily accept a filmmaker's changes and lose the drive for investigating the protagonist as anything more than what is presented.
Abstract of Proposal
What happens to the reader’s understanding of a text when it is brought to life on the big screen? This session explores narrative changes film adaptations have made to now-classic texts. How do specific changes affect the viewer’s reception of the story, ultimately affecting the “cultural work” the story performs? In her landmark study "Sensational Designs," Jane Tompkins argues that the “cultural work” performed by any given text equates to the way in which that text engages with and then alters the fabric of the social world around it. While film adaptations often propel under-recognized stories into the marketplace, film versions, by altering the viewers’ relationship to the original text, also alter the “cultural work” these texts perform, making them less significant in the overall cultural landscape.
Specifically, our session focuses on film adaptations where the protagonist becomes more heroic and where the text’s original narrative uncertainty is removed. We highlight the sacrifices a text must make as it is adapted to the screen, explore what effect these sacrifices have upon the viewer, and note how the resulting film adaptations—intended for mainstream market consumption—cheat the viewer out of participatory moments that dilute the text’s potential for affecting social change. For example, when reading Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” the reader must determine the narrator’s reliability, timeline, and audience. Film versions of these stories pre-decide such elements, therefore threatening and ultimately changing the reader’s critical connection with the text.
Location
Session 4C ( Tellfair, Hilton Garden Inn)
Start Date
2-23-2019 8:30 AM
End Date
2-23-2019 10:00 AM
Recommended Citation
Harvest, Carol P. and McLallen, Wendy, ""That's Not in the Book!": Narrative Discord from Text to Film" (2019). International Critical Media Literacy Conference. 30.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/criticalmedialiteracy/2019/2019/30
"That's Not in the Book!": Narrative Discord from Text to Film
Session 4C ( Tellfair, Hilton Garden Inn)
What happens to the reader’s understanding of a text when it is brought to life on the big screen? This session explores narrative changes film adaptations have made to now-classic texts. How do specific changes affect the viewer’s reception of the story, ultimately affecting the “cultural work” the story performs? In her landmark study "Sensational Designs," Jane Tompkins argues that the “cultural work” performed by any given text equates to the way in which that text engages with and then alters the fabric of the social world around it. While film adaptations often propel under-recognized stories into the marketplace, film versions, by altering the viewers’ relationship to the original text, also alter the “cultural work” these texts perform, making them less significant in the overall cultural landscape.
Specifically, our session focuses on film adaptations where the protagonist becomes more heroic and where the text’s original narrative uncertainty is removed. We highlight the sacrifices a text must make as it is adapted to the screen, explore what effect these sacrifices have upon the viewer, and note how the resulting film adaptations—intended for mainstream market consumption—cheat the viewer out of participatory moments that dilute the text’s potential for affecting social change. For example, when reading Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” the reader must determine the narrator’s reliability, timeline, and audience. Film versions of these stories pre-decide such elements, therefore threatening and ultimately changing the reader’s critical connection with the text.
