Jane Austen on screen

the long version

Jane Austen on Screen is a collection of essays exploring the literary and cinematic implications of translating Austen's prose into film. Contributors raise questions of how prose fiction and cinema differ, of how mass commercial audiences require changes to script and character, and of how continually remade films evoke memories of earlier productions. The essays represent widely divergent perspectives, from literary "purists" suspicious of film renderings of Austen to filmmakers who see the text as a stimulus for producing exceptional cinema. Theoretical issues are explored in balance with the practical concerns of literature-to-film conversions: casting choices, authenticity of settings, script "amputations" of the original prose, anachronisms, relevance for modern mass audiences, and the intertextuality informing the production of much-remade works. This study, including an exhaustive Austen bibliography and filmography, will be of interest to students and teachers alike.