Course Description
This course examines the process of translating plays and novels into films. Students will read first and then watch the movies based on the following works: several modern adaptations of William Shakespeare's King Lear, Jane Smiley's novel A Thousand Acres, and the film adaptation of that novel. We will then turn our attention to contemporary novels and film adaptations including Valdimir Nabokov's Lolita, E.L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel and Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. We will compare how the movies interpret particular aspects of the above novels. We will also examine the possible shortcomings of the movies, and discuss the conceptual bases of translation and adaption.
Units
4
