Promotional Information

One of the best books ever written on the topic of motion-picture adaptations. It provides not only a full-scale theoretical and cultural map of the field but also a convincing argument for teaching students how to write and think critically. It was a joy to read. -- James Naremore, Indiana University

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1. Literature versus Literacy
2. One-Reel Epics
3. The Word Made Film
4. Entry-Level Dickens
5. Between Adaptation and Allusion
6. Exceptional Fidelity
7. Traditions of Quality
8. Streaming Pictures
9. The Hero with a Hundred Faces
10. The Adapter as Auteur
11. Postliterary Adaptation
12. Based on a True Story
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Thomas Leitch is a professor of English at the University of Delaware.

Reviews

I would highly recommend Leitch's study, in particular for its diversity and complexity. The author demonstrates that he is familiar with a large and heterogeneous corpus, including canonical as well as popular or marginal films and texts, which adaptation studies can only benefit from. -- Thomas Van Parys Image & Narrative As a cogent summary and critique of film adaptation, this would be a good first book for newcomers to the subject... Highly recommended. Choice This convincingly argued and eloquently presented volume is replete with an array of accessible examples that provide an illustrative stylistic lightness of touch... whilst resisting any potential dilution of the underlying radical and important thesis-a thesis which incontrovertibly advances and enhances our approach to adaptation studies on a number of highly original and insightful levels. -- Dr. Alison Forsyth Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance Film Adaptation and Its Discontents is a worthy and distinctive entrant into an already crowded field. Its strengths lie in the detailed and persuasively argued collective case histories... as well as its often penetrating and always illuminating discussions of specific problems. -- R. Barton Palmer Film Quarterly For those interested in the cinematic works their favorite books inspire,Thomas Leitch's Film Adaptation and Its Discontents should provide food for thought. -- Rebecca Oppenheimer The Jeffersonian I highly recommend the book both to those new or well versed in adaptation studies as a thought-provoking look at the questions to be asked - and perhaps answered - in this domain of ever-increasing importance. -- Shannon Wells-Lassagne Cercles