Adaptation As Emancipation: Semantic Decoding of the Female Protagonist in Kenneth Branagh’S Film Adaptation of Mary Shelley's Novel "Frankenstein"
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Adaptation as Emancipation: Semantic Decoding of the Female Protagonist in Kenneth Branagh’s Film Adaptation of Mary Shelley's Novel "Frankenstein" Matek, Ljubica; Pataki, Jelena Source / Izvornik: Adaptation: Theory, Criticism and Pedagogy, 2018, 79 - 98 Book chapter / Poglavlje u knjizi Publication status / Verzija rada: Accepted version / Završna verzija rukopisa prihvaćena za objavljivanje (postprint) https://doi.org/10.2370/9783844050622 Permanent link / Trajna poveznica: https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:142:468884 Rights / Prava: In copyright Download date / Datum preuzimanja: 2021-10-11 Repository / Repozitorij: FFOS-repository - Repository of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Osijek Contributions to Literature-on-Screen Studies and other Adaptation Studies / Beiträge zur Erforschung der Literaturverfilmungen und anderer Adaptionsfälle Edited by / herausgegeben von ŽELJKO UVANOVIĆ Volume 2 / Band 2 2018 Adaptation: Theory, Criticism and Pedagogy Selected papers, student projects, and the film adaptation Osijek Sweet Osijek Edited by Ljubica Matek and Željko Uvanović Shaker Verlag Aachen 2018 Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. Diese Publikation wurde durch die freundliche Hilfe eines internen Forschungsprojekts der J.- J.-Strossmayer-Universität Osijek an der Fakultät für Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften (UNIOS INGI 2015-11, PL: Prof. Dr. Željko Uvanović, Gastwissenschaftlerin: Prof. Dr. Kamilla Elliott, Lancaster University, UK) finanziert. Dem damaligen Rektor Herrn Prof. Dr. Željko Turkalj sowie dem damaligen Vize-Rektor für Wissenschaft und Forschung Herrn Prof. Dr. Rudolf Scitovski sei an dieser Stelle ganz herzlicher Dank ausgesprochen! © 2018 · Shaker Verlag Postfach 10 18 18 D-52018 Aachen Alle Rechte Vorbehalten. Dieses Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der Grenzen des Urhebergesetzes ohne schriftliche Zustimmung des Verlages ist unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Nachdruck, auch auszugsweise, Reproduktion, Vervielfältigung, Übersetzung, Mikroverfilmung sowie Digitalisierung oder Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung auf Tonträgern und in elektronischen Systemen aller Art. Verfasser einzelner Beiträge behalten ihre Rechte nur auf ihrem Beitrag. Alle Informationen in diesem Buch wurden mit größter Sorgfalt erarbeitet und geprüft. Weder Herausgeber, Autor noch Verlag können jedoch für Schäden haftbar gemacht werden, die in Zusammenhang mit der Verwendung dieses Buches stehen. Englisches Korrekturlesen der Beiträge / English proof-reading: Jelena Pataki, MA Internet: http://www.shaker.de http://www.shaker.eu E-Mail: [email protected] Telefon: 02407 / 95 96 -0 Telefax: 02407 / 95 96 -9 Printed in Germany ISBN 978-3-8440-5062-2 ISSN 2367-041X DOI 10.2370/9783844050622 In memory of Laurence Raw (1959-2018) In gratitude for his contributions to Adaptation Studies Table of Contents Why Adaptation? (Ljubica Matek and Željko Uvanović) ...........................................1-4 Part I: Theory Theoretical Progressivism and Theoretical Return in Humanities Adaptation Studies (Kamilla Elliott) ......................................................................................................... 7-16 An Analytic of Adaptation and Related Processes (Patrick Colm Hogan) .............. 17-36 Part II: Criticism – Case Studies: The Classics Following Her (Father’s) Dreams: The Disneyfication of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s “The Frog King” (Nada Kujundžić) .....................................39-62 To Be, or not to Be Shakespeare? Documentaries without Documents: Biographical Films about a Mysterious Author (Hui Wu) ........................................63-78 Adaptation as Emancipation: Semantic Decoding of the Female Protagonist in Kenneth Branagh’s Film Adaptation of Mary Shelley's Novel Frankenstein (Ljubica Matek and Jelena Pataki) ...........................................79-98 Part III: Criticism – Case Studies: Contemporary Works Who Watches Watchmen? Film Adaptation and the Sequential Art (Giuseppe Barbuscia) ............................................................................................101-118 The Power of “feeling Nothing” in Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman’s Play The 7 Stages of Grieving (Iva Polak) ..................................119-132 The Croatian Version of Eric Idle’s Spamalot, an Homage to a Translator (Tihana Klepač and Katja Radoš-Perković) ……………..…...…133-146 Metastases of Croatian Reality. Discourse on Fascization: the 2006 Novel by Alen Bović and the 2009 Film by Branko Schmidt (Marijan Krivak) ………..…147-156 Staying Human and Humane Within and Without One’s Own Civilizational Frame: An Analysis of Adaptations of Things Fall Apart, Lord of the Flies and The Road (Branko Marijanović) …………………………157-175 vii PART IV: The Pedagogy of Adaptation – Experiences Research and Teaching Excellence, Adaptation Studies and the Novel: A Pedagogical Narrative (Laurence Raw) ………………………179-191 Herr der Staubfilter – Lord of the Filters: Adaptation as a Student Project (Amela Ćurković) ………………………………….…………192-202 In Search of the Title: A Student’s View on the Making of Osijek Sweet Osijek (Amra Hodžić) ……………………….…203-208 A University Professor’s Evolution of Practical and Theoretical Preoccupation with Film Adaptations of Literary Works in Research and Teaching (An Epilogue) (Željko Uvanović) …………………………….…………………209-222 *** Photo and YouTube Video Documentation of Some Parts of the Programme of the 2017 Osijek Adaptation Conference and of Its Echo..................................223-233 viii Why Adaptation?1 While it cannot be said that there is a lack of scholarly publications on adaptation studies, the present volume, as its title suggests, offers a selection of texts dealing with adaptations from multiple perspectives and thus illustrating the multifaceted concerns of adaptation scholars. For the most part, the contributors to the volume are scholars who participated at the Adaptation: Theory, Criticism and Pedagogy international conference that took place in February 2017 at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, J.J. Strossmayer University of Osijek, and which gathered adaptation scholars in various stages of their careers, approaching the subject of adaptation from different points of view.2 The papers highlight the field’s versatility in that they focus on adaptation’s theoretical, critical, and pedagogical (applicable) nature. Part One deals with adaptation from the point of view of the field’s (contested, complicated, complex) theory. In “Theoretical Progressivism and Theoretical Return in Humanities Adaptation Studies,” Kamilla Elliott argues that even the theory of adaptation should adapt to adaptation in order to be meaningful. Therefore, instead of opting for an exclusively conservative or progressive approach to theory, scholars should rather combine old and new theories in order to enable future constructive debates and keep the adaptation scholarship alive and relevant. Patrick Colm Hogan attempts to provide a theoretically clearer and, at the same time, practically valuable definition of adaptation by carefully distinguishing adaptation from its closely related concepts such as remediation, performative interpretation, modelling, and derivative influence. The following two sections contain critical interpretations of specific adaptations. In Part Two, contributors discuss adaptations of literary classics, starting with Nada Kujundžić’s analysis of concrete strategies employed to modify the Grimms’ fairy tale “The Frog King” into the recognizable Disney mould, which may be described 1 This publication was fully supported by the J.J. Strossmayer University of Osijek under the UNIOS INGI 2015-11 project titled Transcultural / Transmedial: British / American, German, and Croatian Film Adaptations of Literature in the Period 1990-2015. The project leader was Prof. Dr. Željko Uvanović. 2 The conference resulted from the organizers’ desire to continue and expand the research done within the UNIOS INGI 2015-11 project, and allowed for the project’s guest researcher, Kamilla Elliott, to participate at the conference as keynote speaker. 1 as a mixture of fairy tale, romance, and a Broadway musical with an inevitable happy ending. Hui Wu looks at the treatment of Shakespeare’s life in various biographical films and series arguing that the Bard’s life, as represented in these adaptations, is an adaptation itself. These works, claims the author, highlight the trend of creating documentaries without documents that makes biopics far more a matter of fiction than faction. Finally, in time to mark the 200th anniversary of the novel’s publication, Ljubica Matek and Jelena Pataki argue that Kenneth Branagh’s film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein closely follows the undercurrents of the novel by emphasizing Elizabeth’s independence that was present ever so subtly in the source text. Part Three is dedicated to adaptations of twentieth and early twenty-first century source texts. By focusing on Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen, Giuseppe Barbuscia discusses the constraints of adapting sequential art into film by focusing on the issues of fidelity and “unfilmability,” and by suggesting that, rather than borrowing the graphic medium’s means of expression, a successful film adaptation