Visual and Performative Elements in Screen Adaptation

In recent years there have been significant advances in theory and criticism around screen adaptation (cf. ed. Naremore 2000, Cardwell 2002). However the literary source text is still often perceived as a unified, harmonious whole, capable of unproblematic reading — the ‘problems’ are all seen as pertaining to the adaptation. This article contends that literary texts themselves draw on many other cultural sources and codes such as music, landscape, painting and performative references. It will argue that the process of film-making responds to these inferred levels where the coding of the source-text may be merely inferred, or indeed contradictory. The author, a practising feature film maker, takes as case-studies films written and directed by her to explore and analyse longitudinally the process of adaptation from the film-maker's perspective, both at the level of scripting and organisation of narrative material, and at the level of film production, distribution and criticism