Call for papers (2021)
Literature & Cinema
Half of all the films ever produced were inspired or based upon literary texts, almost always successful novels. At the base of this phenomenon lie commercial and artistic reasons. To filmmakers, cinematic adaptation presents a clear advantage: the script is based upon a book which has already conquered readers and, if adequately transposed to cinema, success may be repeated. For novelists, the alliance between literature and cinema can also be economically advantageous. For instances, Ernest Hemingway earned 150,000 dollars for the adaptation of the novella The Old Man and the Sea. Similarly, at the beginning of the new millennium, J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter saga, sold the right to adapt her novels to cinema by no less than a million pounds.
However, cinematic adaptation carries two crucial challenges: first, literary and audiovisual languages are different; secondly, the process of transposition envolves commercial and artistic risks, since a best-seller already has a sound reputation among readers and literary critics. When a spectator enters a theatre to see an adaptation, he carries a horizon of expectations based upon his reading and may feel frustrated with the options taken by the screenwriter and the director.
We, therefore, call for the submission of texts that contribute to the reflection and discussion of the following aspects:
- Challenges of cinematic adaptation;
- Strategies and processes of cinematic adaptation: changing characters, perspective, plot, space, time, etc.;
- Literary vs. audiovisual language;
- Faithfulness and creative freedom;
- Levels of adaptation;
- Films based on short-stories, novellas or novels;
- Short-stories, novellas or novels adapted from films.
Coordinator: João de Mancelos
Submission deadline: June 30, 2021
Send article submission to mancelos@ua.pt
