Theories on Adaptation

As I read more and more critical discussion of adaptation (Bluestone 1957, Wagner 1975, Spiegel 1976, and Reynolds 1993), I am forced to consider what use I can make of these theories in light of my own developing body of work about adaptation.

Ultimately, looking at theories and practices of how novels are adapted into film provides an interesting model to apply to how I use graphic design. It is not necessarily an applicable model. The main point of departure is that theories laid out about adapting written language into a visual language speak of a filmic language – which is not strictly analogous to the graphic design language I am working with.

My approach is to almost take statements from these theories as hypotheses to be fleshed out and tested. The idea of working to contradict pre-existing notions about graphic design's communicative potential is fascinating to me. There remains in my thinking a deep skepticism for how well narratives survive an adaptation process – and at the same time a real idealism for what can occur. This idealism is rooted in the fact that the visual language I can create as a graphic designer might have communicative potentials beyond a purely filmic language or a written one. I can pull from the materiality from letterpress and silk-screening, language from great novels and a sense of structure and sequence from filmic editing and film narrative conventions. The interplay between these elements can fuse to form an inflection of the original narrative, indeed a new type of narrative, .

Adaptation still remains the umbrella under which my studies sit. Theories will function as a sort of wall to push my work against.