Screen Adaptations: Great Expectations: A close study of the relationship between text and film

Description

A close study of the relationship between text and film versions of Great Expectations. Literature and film studies students will find plenty of material to support their courses and essay writing on how the film versions provide different readings of the original text. Focussing on David Lean's film of Great Expectations, the book discusses: the literary text in its historical context, key themes and dominant readings of the text, how the text is adapted for screen and how adaptations have changed our reading of the original text. There are numerous excerpts from the literary text, screenplays and shooting scripts, with suggestions for comparison. The book also features quotations from authors, screenwriters, directors, critics and others linked with the chosen film and text.

Brian McFarlane is Honorary Associate Professor at Monash University,Australia. He is a distinguished figure in literature and film whosebooks include The Encyclopedia of British Film and An Autobiography of British Cinema, The Cinema of Britain and Ireland, and Novel to Film.

One of relatively few textbooks that I can imagine undergraduates, studying modules in film or literary adaptation, really wanting to possess... the book is genuinely covetable because of the amount of stimulation it packs into such an accessible form... Best of all is McFarlane's authorial voice, enthusiastic, avuncular, occasionally anecdotal, opinionated but somehow balanced.. At Masters level, there is enough material here to speak at least a couple of seminars and debates... There is also enough to tempt the general reader, and keep him or her reading... * Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance * This is one of relatively few textbooks that i can imagine undergraduates, studying modules in film or literary adaptation, really wanting to possess. * Reviews (2009) * [The Screen Adaptations series] offers some meaty ideas to film studies students. -- Susan Elkin * The Stage *