Adaptation As Criticism

As a subject of literary criticism, Henry James has been approached by numerous perspectives. During the last fifty years, each successive wave of theoretical and critical practice has exemplified its style of interpretation by offering powerful readings and re-readings of James. Inspired by the film adaptation craze of Henry James's literary works in the late 1990s and encouraged by the recent development in film adaptation studies, this dissertation tends to argue that a film that is based upon a literary piece of Henry James, though it might be artistic in its own right, also serves as a critique of that work. With a detailed analysis of three films adapted from two of his works in his early career and later years, Washington Square (1880) and"The Turn of the Screw"(1898), this dissertation brings together elements of adaptation studies, literary and film criticism to construct a different way to analyze literature. Furthermore, the examination of these adaptations also demonstrates how the filmmakers'interpretative process and strategies are influenced by their peculiar social and cultural circumstances.The dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter One serves as an introduction to the whole dissertation, which briefly discusses the relationship between film and literature, the development of adaptation studies and the cinematic treatment of James's fiction in the history of film adaptation, in order to lay a framework that informs the research of this dissertation. There are many ways to envisage the relationship between film and literature. However, the most common understanding of the term is that of adaptations of literary works. Since the narrative fiction film became the dominant mode, filmmakers have made unrelenting attempts to adapt literature, first for the safety of investment and later for artistic inspiration. The frequent interaction between film and literature has generated considerable attention from the academic world. Critics and scholars in both fields have contributed to a range of approaches to address the phenomenon of film adaptation of literary works. In the early stage, the field of adaptation studies was characterized by its preoccupation with the question of fidelity because many privileged the established hierarchy recognizing literature as a superior form. As the adaptation studies develop, the idea of fidelity as an absolute standard is challenged by an increasing number of critics and scholars who seek to dismantle the hierarchy and attempt to promote film adaptation to...