True to the spirit : film adaptation and the question of fidelity /

MacCabe (Univ. of Pittsburgh; Univ. of London, UK) begins this collection by considering The Butcher Boy as an example of Bazinian adaptation. Fredric Jameson's somewhat forbidding afterword, "Adaptation as a Philosophical Problem," closes the volume, plunging the metaphysical depths of Stanislaw Lem's Solaris as adapted by Andrey Tarkovsky. In between are other luminaries: Dudley Andrew (on "the economies of adaptation"), Tom Gunning (early cinema), James Naremore ("hearts of darkness"), and Laura Mulvey (Max Ophuls). The remaining contributions are mainly by tyros and doctoral candidates, but these efforts are not without interest. Jarrell Wright on The Shining is worth reading, though he resists then accepts "the persistence of fidelity." Wright's essay is central to the book's argument, and The Shining adaptation is certainly "true to the spirit" of the source. More readable than the work of Robert Stam--Literature through Film and Literature and Film and A Companion to Literature and Film, both coedited with Alessandra Raengo, all, CH Jul'05, 42-6390, 6390a, 6390b)--though less elegant than Thomas Leitch's Film Adaptation and Its Discontents (CH, Jan'08, 45-2508). Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. J. M. Welsh emeritus, Salisbury University