Meeting Times

The course meets on Thursdays from 2:10-5:00 pm in the Hedges Conference Room.

Information About the Instructor

• Dr. Walter Metz, Assistant Professor (but please just call me Walter!)
• Office Location: VCB 224
• Office Phone: (406) 994-6403 [with voice mail]
• Home Phone [w/ answering machine]: 522-9183 [feel free to call between 9 am and 10 pm]
• e-mail address: metz@montana.edu
• Office Hours: Tuesdays, 3-5pm; Wednesdays, 3-5 pm; and by appointment

Walter’s Web Site

I am in the process of constructing a web site for this class. It can be accessed through my home page. The URL for my home page is: http://bloopy.kusm.montana.edu/metz

If you have any questions or fears about this technology, please do not hesitate to come to my office, where I can show you how it works.

Course Goals

This course focuses on one of the most neglected areas of film theory: the study of films which are adapted from prior source material. We will approach this topic from a number of angles. First, Walter will present work derived from his current book project on the nature of adaptation, offering what he hopes is an invigorating gesture into the study of adaptation. Then, we will historically unearth how adaptation studies developed, and what its current status is. The rest of the course will consist of a number of case studies in which we read the source material and watch the films which were adapted from it. These case studies will allow us to test out our hypotheses as to how to produce an invigorated adaptation criticism.

Since most of the students in the seminar will be production oriented, the course will attempt to cross-reference academic adaptation studies with how the problem is dealt with from a production standpoint. Students will also be asked to apply their learning in the course to the construction of a script which is adapted from prior source material.

Students will learn from this course how to analyze films using academic methods. You should also emerge from this experience with a greater ability and inclination to think critically about the media environment surrounding you. You will develop an ecclectic understanding of film and literary history. Finally, you will be given the opportunity to do a significant amount of writing, to hone your written communication skills.

Film Screenings

I am planning on not showing a lot of the films during class time. I propose to have one copy of each film on reserve at the library, and another one floating among members of the class. Since there will be less than 15 students in the seminar, I think this should work. If it does not, we can start doing more screenings in class, or perhaps schedule screening times during the evenings or week-ends, according to people’s schedules.

Reading Material

I have ordered 4 books for this class. They are all available at the MSU bookstore (located in the Strand Union). They are:

1. William Shakespeare, The Tempest
2. Timothy Corrigan, Film and Literature: An Introduction and Reader
3. Linda Seger, The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film
4. James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice

The readings are also largely derived from critical essays not in these books. I have placed these items on reserve at the library. I will also keep a master original, and if you want to borrow it for short periods of time and take it to the Kinkos to copy, you are welcome to do so.

Cheating and Plagiarism

It is presumed that all work submitted is the original work of the student whose name appears on it and that the work was prepared originally for this course. All research notes and materials gathered for your writing should be kept and must be made available to the instructor upon request. All such material will be returned following the evaluation of the writing.

Plagiarism occurs in two ways. Intentional plaigarism occurs when a student willfully misrepresents the source of the work handed in. Any student caught engaging in intentional plaigarism will not pass my course and will be disciplined further as per university regulations.

More common is unintentional plaigarism, wherein a student, in the course of writing a paper, does not provide proper citation materials which indicate the source of individual ideas within the paper. In such a case, I will call a meeting with the student, and we will amicably resolve the problem by discussing proper academic citation strategies in the humanities.

Note Taking

To do well, you must take notes in this class, on lecture material, the readings, and the screenings. In lecture, I'll be throwing a lot of complicated information at you, so you'll need to write it down, reflect on it, and work to understand its relevance to the "Big Picture." This is not the sort of class where if you just come and pay attention, you are guaranteed a good grade.  There is a great deal of reading material, and in order to learn what is contained therein, you need to take notes on it and study it. People learn by processing material repeatedly.  Reading something once without going back over it a few times (taking notes facilitates this) does not encourage remembering it later.

Grading Policy

Sometimes, students enter a film studies class expecting it to be a "gut" class (we're watching movies--how hard can it be?!!). This is not an easy class. The readings are heavy and the information I'll be presenting and we'll be discussing is often theoretical, and thus difficult and challenging. That said, however, I want to re-assure you that I'll keep this in mind while determining grades. Don't be afraid if you're confused early on. Use our discussions, your writing, and office hours to work through this new material. That confusion is invigorating and is the fuel that will drive your education. I've attempted to structure the course so that it will be challenging, yet accessible, to students of varying levels and abilities. I will use the + and - system when assigning grades.

Graded Course Activities

• 2 pp Treatment for adaptation script                           5%
• 15 min. Presentation on auteurism and adaptation     20%
• 30 pp Adaptation script                                            25%
• 10 pp Paper on adaptation                                       25%
• Final Exam                                                               25%
• Attendance See below

Description of Exams

My exams are rather challenging. However, I grade on a curve, and most students who study hard throughout the semester will do well on them. You'll be given essay questions about the material presented in class and in the readings, and its applicability to the screenings. The material for these questions will be culled from our discussions (including clips shown in class), reading material, and the films themselves. Please write down immediately the date of the exam. If you do not take the exam, you will receive a grade of F for the course (except in cases of extreme personal emergency).

Description of Writing Assignments

You will be writing two major projects for this course. First, you will produce a 10pp academic paper on adaptation. The paper should address some of the approaches to adaptation discussed in the class, and apply these methods to an adaptational site (or sites) of your choosing. Secondly, you will produce a creative script which is based on previous material. The script should be about 30 pages long: that is, an entire script for an adaptation of a short story, or one act of your choosing for an adaptation of a novel.

Attendance Policy

If you don't come to lecture regularly, there's no way you'll pass the course. I'll be presenting complicated information in class, and be showing clips from films that won't be available later on. Since so much of the learning will be going on during lecture, you won't be able to fully understand the lecture by looking at someone else's notes later on. Also, there are no course notes available for this course. I will keep track of attendance, as a criteria for borderline students caught between one grade and another. Since the course is difficult, I always give a break to students who have demonstrated their interest by coming to class diligently (and also coming to office hours, etc.). However, students who miss a great deal of classes do not help their cause any. As a general rule, if you miss more than 1 seminar meeting (unexcused absences, according to university definitions), expect to receive no better than a C in the course; 3 or more unexcused absences without explanation will result in a grade of F for the course.

How to do well in this class

1. Come to class prepared (having done the reading, having thought about the films, being prepared with questions, etc.).
2. Take good notes on every facet of the class (screenings, lectures, readings). This will prove invaluable in preparing for the discussions and the exam.
3. Do the reading. Many students fall behind, and then complain that they're having trouble in the class. The reading is vital because it frames issues of the class in different words than mine in lecture. This gives you a second voice to help you understand difficult ideas. If you don't understand a particular essay or don't find it useful, come to talk with me about it--the discussion we have will benefit us both. Keep up with the reading. Set aside a large block of time on Wednesdays (before the class periods) to read, take notes, and ponder the significance of the readings for the class.

Course Syllabus

Thursday, January 14: Introduction to the Course

Lecture

Walter will present an overview of the history and theory of adaptation studies, as well as present his own theory of adaptation.

Thursday, January 21: The Birth of Adaptation Studies

Discussion

We will talk about our thoughts about the adaptational process, and examine traditional work in this area of film theory.

Reading

• Timothy Corrigan, Film and Literature (Chapter 9: "Historical Positions")
• George Bluestone, "The Informer" (reserves)
• George Bluestone, "Madame Bovary" (reserves)

Viewing

• The Informer (John Ford, 1935)
• Madame Bovary (Vincente Minnelli, 1949)

Thursday, January 28: International Film Adaptations

Lecture

Walter will explore the differences in adaptational method in Hollywood vs. International cinema. This will be done through a case study of the many adaptations of Victor Hugo’s Romantic masterpiece, Les Miserables.

Reading

• Dudley Andrew, "Adaptation" {in Corrigan}
• Marsha Kinder, "A Thrice-Told Tale: Godard’s Le Mepris" (reserves)
• Millicent Marcus, "Literature and Film: Negotiating the Terms" (reserves)
• Millicent Marcus, "Pasolini’s Decameron: Writing with Bodies" {in Corrigan}

Viewing

• The Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson, 1950)
• Les Miserables (Claude Lelouch, 1995)

Thursday, February 4: Recent Approaches to Adaptation Studies

Discussion

We will examine whether Corrigan and McFarlane’s approaches move us beyond the traditional approaches to adaptation as typified by Bluestone. We will discuss other ways to move adaptation studies out of its current morass.

Reading

• Timothy Corrigan, Film and Literature (Introduction, Part I, and Part II: pp 1-94)
• Brian McFarlane, "Backgrounds, Issues, and a New Agenda" (reserves)
• Brian McFarlane, "The Scarlet Letter" (reserves)
• Brian McFarlane, "Cape Fear" (reserves)

Viewing

• The Scarlet Letter (Victor Seastrom, 1926)
• Cape Fear (Martin Scorsese, 1991)

Thursday, February 11: Adaptation Case Study #1

Discussion

We will discuss the most complicated of literature-film intersections, that between Shakespeare and Film. Gradually, we will narrow ourselves to a case study of The Tempest. In our first encounter, will will explore the linkages between Classical Hollywood Cinema and Shakespeare, via an investigation of Forbidden Planet as an adaptation of The Tempest.

Reading

• William Shakespeare, The Tempest
• Peter Biskind, "Pods and Blobs" (reserves)

Viewing

• Forbidden Planet (Fred McCloud Wilcox, 1956)

Thursday, February 18: Adaptation Case Study #1 (Cont’d)

Discussion

We will continue our exploration of Shakespeare and Film by looking at the European Art Cinema’s adaptations of The Tempest.

Reading

• Paul Brown, "This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine" (reserves)
• Vaughan and Vaughan, "Screen History" (reserves)

Viewing

• The Tempest (Derek Jarman, 1979)
• Prospero’s Books (Peter Greenaway, 1990)

Thursday, February 25: Adaptation Case Study #1 (Cont’d)

Discussion

We conclude our exploration of Shakespeare and Film by looking at the New Hollywood’s adaptations of The Tempest.

Reading

• Thomas Schatz, "The New Hollywood" (reserves)
• Steven Neale, "New Hollywood Cinema" (reserves)
• Boose and Burt, "Totally Clueless?" {in Corrigan}

Viewing

• Tempest (Paul Mazursky, 1982)
• L.A. Story (Mick Jackson, 1991)

Thursday, March 4: Adaptation as a Production Problem

Discussion

We will discuss adaptation, not from a theoretical point of view, but from the point of view of filmmakers. After this discussion, students will each pitch their ideas for their final project adaptation scripts.

Reading

• Linda Seger, The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film

Viewing

• Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
• The Bonfire of the Vanities (Brian DePalma, 1990)

Thursday, March 11: Adaptation and Auteurism

Lecture

Walter will discuss the history of criticism’s privileging of high over low culture. He will then examine how literature and film have traditionally fit into this equation. Afterwards, he will intervene in this high-low debate via adaptation, by examining high cultural cinema (Stanley Kubrick) and low cultural fiction (Stephen King). This will hopefully serve as a model for student thinking about important directors as adaptors and mass-market novelists as source work for significant cinema, a subject about which students will be lecturing in the weeks after Spring Break.

DUE:  2 Page Treatments of Adaptation Scripts

Reading

• Greg Jenkins, "Introduction" (reserves)
• Greg Jenkins, "The Shining" (reserves)

Viewing

• The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
• The Dead Zone (David Cronenberg, 1983)

Thursday, March 18: NO CLASS (Spring Break)

Thursday, March 25: Student presentations on adaptation and auteurism

Thursday, April 1: Workshopping Adaptation Scripts

DUE: 10 page drafts of adaptation scripts, to be discussed in class.

Thursday, April 8: Adaptation Case Study #2

Discussion

We will read a perfect example of an American pulp novel (James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice), and then study how the Classical Hollywood Cinema turned it into a perfect example of the visual style known as "film noir," and the New Hollywood re-adapted it into a "neo-noir."

Reading

• James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice

Viewing

• The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1948)
• The Postman Always Rings Twice (Bob Rafelson, 1981)

Thursday, April 15: Adaptation Case Study #2 (Cont’d)

Discussion

We will continue our study of The Postman Always Rings Twice by examining how two international film traditions adapted the novel: Italian Neo-Realism’s Ossessione and the Chinese cinema’s Ju Dou.

Reading

• Giuseppe DeSantis, "Visconti’s Interpretation of Cain’s Setting" (reserves)
• Allison Graham, "The Phantom Self" (reserves)
• J.P. Telotte, "Visconti’s Ossessione and the World of Neorealism" (reserves)

Viewing

• Ossessione (Luchino Visconti, 1942)
• Ju Dou (Zhang Yimou, 1989)

Thursday, April 22: Adaptation Case Study #3

Course Evaluations

Discussion

We will examine an obverse case from that of The Postman Always Rings Twice: a French novella, "Woman and Puppet," adapted by the Classical Hollywood Cinema (the Von Sternberg-Dietrich collaboration, The Devil is a Woman) and then adapted by International Art Cinema auteur Luis Bunuel in That Obscure Object of Desire.

DUE: First Draft of Adaptation Script (To be distributed to other students)

Reading

• Pierre Louys, "Woman and Puppet" (reserves)

Viewing

• The Devil is a Woman (Joseph Von Sternberg, 1935)
• That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Bunuel, 1979)

Thursday, April 29: Discussion of students’ adaptation scripts

Discussion

We will have a round-table discussion of the student’s adaptation scripts, and offer some concluding remarks about the course material.

DUE: Academic Paper on Adaptation History, Theory, and/or Criticism

Final Exam

Wednesday, May 5 from 4:00pm until 5:50pm in the Hedges Conference Room

DUE:  The Final Draft of your Adaptation Script is due at the Final Exam

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This page was last updated on June 17, 2001

Questions or Comments? Please phone me at (406) 994-6403 or send an e-mail to: metz@montana.edu

Walter Metz, Department of Media and Theatre Arts, Montana State University--Bozeman