Film & Literature
Spring, 2015
Assist. Prof. Selhan S.-Endres
selhanse@icloud.com
COURSE POLICY & SYLLABUS
“When opened out beyond questions of specificity and fidelity, adaptation studies
necessarily and productively trouble and open disciplinary boundaries(both those of
literary studies and film studies). It is in that gap that many of the most compelling ideas
appear.”
Tim Corrigan, “Literature on Screen, a History: In the Gap”
Since its early stages, film has always turned to literary materials of all kinds for subject matter,
and adaptation which can be described as the transposition of a novel, play, or other literary
source to the screen, is the most common practice in this exchange. By highlighting the
predominant tension between virtuality and literacy in these adaptations, this course will help
students to trace the new directions of the ongoing debate between “the traditional word” and
“the technological image” as it works through film and literature.
This is thus, an introductory course which mainly emphasizes the challenges and rewards in
dealing with the combination of subjects, focusing primarily on the critical perspectives that
align and distinguish film and literature. Yet in this course, cinema studies will be described as a
“phantom discipline” practiced mainly by interdisciplinary “amateurs” who approach film
studies from outside its disciplinary margins without necessarily any(or much) formal training.
The pivotal objective is to study the implications of the parallel between the bookcover and
screen; page and frame. The course is also designed to address the differences between
readership and spectatorship as ways of bridging experiences of novels and films, focusing on
the ways film and literature negotiate the boundaries between private and public life. Thus, the
course aims to suggest a range of issues and approaches, and to provide tools and signposts that
will allow students to follow their own interests in further research.
The focus will be on some crucial materials as guidelines to enrich the study and discussion of
any particular work of film and literature: film forms that clarify and differentiate the
connections between film and literature; materials about the different approaches used to
analyze film and literature throughout the 20th century. Topics such as novels as films, authors
and auteurism, novelizations, etc., offer a basic vocabulary and allow students to discuss and
compare cinematic and literary techniques and form such as, how narrative point of view has
been traditionally defined in the two practices, or what misé-en-scéne means in the cinema,
before or while they work through the more complex issues binding film and literature. The key
critical concepts that film and literature share and that often distinguish their particular practices,
as well as notions of narrative structure, genres, formal devices like camera techniques,
figurative language and other critical terms and analytic categories will be emphasized when
necessary.
Evaluation:
Midterm exam...................................................30%
Final exam…………………………………….40%
Short papers, reading quizzes, etc.....................20%
Attendance & participation................................10%
Student Responsibilities:
Class performance is a large part of your grade; it includes preparation, attendance, and
participation. You should read/view the texts we are covering on a given day before coming to
class.
Note: to be admitted to the final, the student must fulfill the attendance requirement specified by
YÖK. This means that you may miss no more than 12 hours of class, if you wish to take the
final.
SYLLABUS:
The course reader is available at Doğa Kirtasiye. Other readings may be handed out as needed.
Week 1
Themes, Narratives, and Elements of Style: An Introduction
Feb 9-13
“Reading film and Literature”/ “Literature on Screen”
Week 2
“Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today”/ “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Feb 16-20
Week 3
Feb 23-20
Week 4
March 2-6
Week 5
Reproduction”
“The Script”/ “Adaptation”
Case Study(The Last Picture Show)
“The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film”
Case Study(Citizen Kane)
“‘The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Camera-Stylo’ from the New Wave”
March 9-13
Case Study(Citizen Kane)
Week 6
“Film Exploring Literature” Case Study(Citizen Kane )
March 16-20
Week 7
March 23-27
Week 8
“Reauthoring Film”/Authors and Auteurs
Case Study (Sense and Sensibility/ Pride and Prejudice)
“The Nineteenth-Century Novel on Film”: Jane Austen/Henry James
March 30-Apr 3
Case Study(Sense and Sensibility/ Pride and Prejudice)
Week 9
Case Study(The Bostonians)
Apr 6-10
Week 10
Midterm
Apr 13-17
Week 11
(Spring Break)
Apr 20-24
Week 12
Apr 28-May 1
Week 13
Postmodern Adaptation: Pastiche, Intertextuality and Re-Functioning
Case Study(The Hours)
Case Study(The Hours)
May 5-8
Week 14
Literature on Screen: Conclusion
May 12-15
(May 13: Last Day of Classes)