Film Adaptations of French Literature

Course Description

Summary

Since the very beginnings of cinema, French literature and film have reciprocally inspired one another. From the Surrealists to the New French Extremity movement, many directors have brought French literary works onto the screen. This course will offer students the opportunity to analyze literature and their film adaptations in terms of intermediality and intertextuality. Adaptations will include: La Princesse de Clèves (La Fayette/Delannoy, Oliveira, Sauder), The Nun (Diderot/Rivette), Madame Bovary (Flaubert/Chabrol), Les Misérables (Hugo/Lumière, Bernard,), La Noire de… (Sembène, Sembène), La Prisonnière (Proust/Akerman). Students will examine a variety of adaptations, focusing on the strategies used to turn a book into a film. Issues of adaptation theory will also be explored, as well as the underlying ideology behind the rediscovery of literary authors through cinema. Students will discuss notions such as “faithfulness” to a source text, the translation of thought, literary and film metaphors, and the different “language” of print text and film. Advanced. Conducted in French. Corequisites: Language Series