Copy between the dotted lines:

Page Naming Convention: Name your new page: Research Report by Your Name.

Research Report: 

An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation

By Ian Kavanaugh, Team 5, Novel-to-Film Franchises

               This 28-page excerpt from Brian McFarlane’s Novel to Film: An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation, provides a very objective, systematic analysis of how literary works are transformed into films. McFarlane explores the structural evolution of the novel’s narrative at the end of the 19^th century into the narrative form that film’s use to express a visual story to the viewer. In different sections of the analytical work, McFarlane critically breaks down the process by which viewers judge film adaptations to be “faithful” or “successful”.

            This excerpt is prefaced by quotes by Griffith and Joseph Conrad that prove as evidence for the novel’s narrative structure evolution. McFarlane uses Conrad’s famous statement, “'My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the powers of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel-it is, before all, to make to see” as evidence to prove that authors at the end of the 19^th century “(ushered) in a new emphasis on 'showing how the events unfold dramatically rather than recounting them”; this new change in literary technique has made literary theorists believe that these great authors, in a way, were setting up the novel to be adapted into cinematic art. The emergence of cinema and its popularity as a storytelling medium occurred closely with the evolution of the novel into a more visually expressive device. Brian McFarlane uses this information to preface his various analyses of novel to film adaptation.

            One of the first areas McFarlane explores in his systematic presentation of the novel-to-film adaptation process is how “faithful” a film is to a novel. He does so objectively, first explaining how a film is generally considered faithful to its original source if it captures the “mood” or tone of the piece. This is much easier to do as a filmmaker if they are adapting their cinematic piece from a novel that is more visually expressive, which McFarlane had already stated was a characteristic of literature at the end of the 19^th century. After discussing how a film is considered to be “faithful” to its original literary source, the article points out that each director and/or filmmaker is destined to visually express “their” own reading of a work. This truth will always result in criticism from those who read a literary work and envisioned a different visual adaptation than a filmmaker made. Therefore, to judge the “faithfulness” of a film to a novel is very difficult, as readers have different ideas of how a novel should be visually adapted. At the end of this section, McFarlane quotes another scholar who said, “What relationship should a film have to the original source? Should it be "faithful"? Can it be? To what?” (Beja, 80). These questions make one wonder why a film has to be “faithful” to a novel, and how that is even possible when each individual reader of a novel can have a different definition for what “faithful” is.

            Throughout the rest of his “theory of adaptation”, Brian McFarlane deeply explores several aspects of novel-to-film adaptations. From discussing parallels and differences between narrative functions in both film and novels to analyzing how different narrative perspectives in novels are adapted into films, the knowledgeable literary and film scholar has formulated points that

            Brian McFarlane’s Novel to Film: An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation is extremely relevant to my project’s research. The text has several sections that focus on different relationships between novels, films, and the transition a filmmaker must make to adapt a novel into a cinematic experience. Our project works to determine what characteristics in a novel make for a good film adaptation and how a filmmaker successfully displays these characteristics in a visual medium. Many of Brian McFarlane’s theories and systematic breakdowns of the novel-to-film adaptation process can provide my group members and I the tools with which to analyze a successful novel-to-film franchise such as Harry Potter. In the context of our project, a film’s “success” is defined by data such as box office results and critic reviews. In the most basic sense, though, a film’s success is defined by its ability to be well received by both a large amount of people and an expansive demographic. Though McFarlane tends to remain fairly objective throughout his analysis and systematic breakdown of film adaptations he eventually takes the time to explain what makes an adaptation “proper”.

            A proper adaptation must be “faithful” to its novel in order to be accepted by a film audience. People who have read a novel wish to see it’s unique mood or tone translated onto the screen. This means that in order to have a successful novel-to-film adaptation, the literary work must have a mood, tone, or theme that most people can sense and agree on the existence of. If readers subjectively envisioned wildly different “Harry Potter” worlds, then some might enjoy the film franchise’s version or hate it. Instead, J.K. Rowling succeeded as an author in creating a magical world and story that created a similar visual manifestation in people’s brains. All three directors of the various films recognized this key characteristic of the novel that had to be transitioned into the films and visually represented this unique magical world that kids and adults had been imagining from Rowling’s words. The mere fact that there were three different directors is in itself proof that J.K. Rowling had written this distinct world in words before it was adapted into cinema.

            Brian McFarlane’s theories on novel-to-film adaptation will be an astounding support to this project. They will act as a blueprint with which to truly find out why a series such as Harry Potter was such a widely appealing success and why the Chronicles of Narnia wasn’t. Though many people blame only a filmmaker for creating a “bad” novel-to-film adaptation, it might be more important to analyze whether a novel is designed to be created into a film or not. While J.K. Rowling created a unique magical world that could be both exciting and child-like and dark and emotionally bearing, C.S. Lewis’ Narnia was a less concrete, merely childish world that appealed to a much smaller audience than Harry Potter was able to.

Resources to Further Study:   

Rowling, J.K. "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Script." Tom Felton and More. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2014. <http://tomfeltonandmore.tripod.com/home/id9.html>.

Rowling, J. K., and Mary GrandPré. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. New York: A.A. Levine, 1998. Print.

Papallo, Jason. "Film Franchises: The Art Of The Long Game." Yahoo Finance. Yahoo, 17 Nov. 2014. Web. 24 Nov. 2014. <http://finance.yahoo.com/news/film-franchises-art-long-game-215132021.html;_ylt=A0SO8ySvi3NUsIUAWIJXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTByN2lydWw3BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDOARjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkAw-->.