Adaptations as imitations

the long version

This book traces the history of criticism relating to film adaptation - criticism that generally leads to and follows from George Bluestone's Novels into Film - and then proposes another approach: whereas Bluestone and his followers would emphasize material differences - in the use of language, and senses of time, tense, points of view, and thought - that deductively render "faithful" adaptations as essentially impossible, the author argues that what readers understand and enjoy in a novel goes beyond its materials, and that the thoughts and emotions brought to readers' minds are qualities that are adaptable to film. A film is "faithful" to the novel, therefore, not by copying the experience of its materials, but by imitating its technique and form. Subsequent chapters proceed inductively to examine this approach in practice.-publisher