I’m with Allison, in that I too have no desire to get near rotting Spam, and I too find myself a bit more compelled by your second topic. The assessment of adaptation is a growing field, so the trick here would be to find a place for yourself in it. My take has always been that it operates on a flawed premise: that the film should recreate the book. Moving something from one medium into another is never a direct process; film has different properties than the written word, and vice versa. (Have you ever read “War of the Worlds”? I have to imagine that it was better as a radio play.)

So, if you were to undertake something like this, I suppose I’d like to see you do justice to both texts—the written and the visual. Is there nothing that the film is doing that the novel doesn’t? You loved the film to begin with—what was that reaction based on? Surely there’s something out there where Payne discusses the changes that he’s made (extras on the DVD)—he’s not an idiot. Long story short: this kind of careful comparison of the affordances of specific media has room to contribute something to the field, which is in a bit of a rut.

In a move that actually brings in your later point, you might think about how Shakespeare studies handles this idea of adaptation. I know that Dr. Morrow teaches a class that is particularly attentive to the question, and Timothy Corrigan, a rather interesting film studies dude, has an article called “Which Shakespeare to Love?: Film, Fidelity and the Performance of Literature” in a collection called High Pop.

And, as an aside, I’m actually fascinated by the badness of the video you have here. There’s a project in looking at the circulation of “high literature” in low places, so to speak…

I’m not sure if I’ve ever smelled three month old SPAM, but I don’t think that I’d like to. I think that your first two ideas great. I particularly enjoy the second one. It boggles my mind how films can turn great novels into complete trash…not that I’m saying that Sideways is trash. There is probably a ton of literature out there for your research on Hollywood adaptations of books. So, would your focus be on readership vs. viewership? Like, why are these novels popular enough to make it onto the big screen, but screen writer and directors still feel the need to make it more viewer friendly? Hmm…I guess my point is, if a book is interesting enough to make into a movie, shouldn’t the movie be interesting enough without having to change things? Are you going to look into the difference between book readers, movie watchers, and book readers/movie watchers? There is so much to explore here. I think you should do it!

Also, you should check out this video mostly for the song, but the video is entertaining too. <a href=”Potter Puppets” target=”_new”>Save Ferris-Spam Hopefully my tag works.

I’d have to agree and say that Galatea 2.2 didn’t come close to being a page turner. I had a moment of insanity and read the last three pages when I was halfway through the book. Honestly, I’m so against this. I’ve never understood people who read the first and last few pages before actually starting a book. It’s just completely insane. However, with Galatea 2.2 I was slowly disconnecting with each page I read. Reading ahead slightly propelled me in the knowledge that Helen was going to shut herself down and that the efforts of Lentz and Powers weren’t all in vain. Still, these little nuggets of info didn’t help in overcoming the lack of plot, as well as Power’ over abundance of metaphor, scientific jargon, and bulky language.

Beth

P.S. Great clip.