Abstract

Since almost the beginnings of the cinema, films have looked to novels for source material. That is, novels have long been adapted into films. The structural similarities of novels and films make filmed adaptations of novels possible. Nonetheless, adaptations vary highly as to their success at filming the novel. This study attempts to narrow the topic to the adaptation of a single narrative element, the portrayal of psychological and sociological alienation, and to investigate the "image and concept" of alienation in the source novel with the image and concept of the alienation depicted in the receiving factor, the film adaptation, much as a comparatist might compare the image and concept of any element--the hero as protagonist, the myth of returning home, the school of literature known as romanticism--in any literature that first portrays it and in any literature that is influenced by that first literature.

The current study contains a close reading and analysis of four novels and the films adapted from them: the novel Death in Venice by Thomas Mann and the film of the same name directed by Luchino Visconti from a screenplay by Visconti and Nicola Badalucco; the novel Swann in Love, a section of the roman fleuve Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust, and the film of the same name directed by Volker Schlondorff from a screenplay by Peter Brook, Schlondorff, Jean-Claude Carriere, and Marie-Helene Estienne; the novel Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry and the film of the same name directed by John Huston from a screenplay by Guy Gallo; and the novel Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, Jr., and the film of the same name directed by Udo Keller from a screenplay by Desmond Nakano.

Rather than trying to demonstrate the failure or success of adaptations by providing a list of either, the current study attempts to draw some general conclusions about adaptation.