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A Guide to Adapting Literature to Film
Denise Faithfull with Brian Hannant
Turning a 250-page novel or a two-and-a-half-hour stage play into a 90-minute film means leaving out much of the original and changing most of what’s left. So why does it remain recognisably the same story? What is the slippery essence that transfers, unaltered, from page to screen?
In
Adaptations, Denise Faithfull comprehensively and systematically addresses the thorny issues of choosing your source and type of adaptation, whether a liberal appropriation, a free-flowing intersection, a variation or a faithful translation. She illuminates questions of structure, character, dialogue and visualisation, and includes a checklist for the adaptor. Brian Hannant’s introductory chapter discusses the history of Australian film, the basic principles of filmmaking and screenwriting, and a guide to correct screenplay layout.
Drawing from dozens of Australian films including
Così,
Lantana,
Hotel Sorrento,
The Boys,
Dead Heart,
Death in Brunswick and
Head On,
Adaptations navigates the treacherous waters of the adaptation process, showing us what works … and what doesn’t.
For anyone who’s ever read a novel, seen a play or heard an incredible true story and thought, ‘Now, that would make a great film’,
Adaptations is the ultimate on how to make it happen.
Click here for a review by Nick Sidoryn, Marden Senior College, as published in the SAETA Newsletter, Spring 2007.
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-792-0 | PB
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Philip Brophy
‘A road movie in a frock’ is one way this much acclaimed, award-winning movie has been described.
But Philip Brophy has a different take in his provocative reading of Stephan Elliott's classic 1994 film. He invites you to consider what the film says about Australia, its history, its culture and its cinema and the results might surprise you. Join him on a wild ride that takes you beyond the film's frames to a darker Australia.
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is the seventh title in Currency's Australian Screen Classics Series.
Reviews and extracts:
'... a wickedly engaging non-linear analysis of the film that pulses with odd juxtapositions and unexpected associations connecting up disparate elements into a 'map' of the film and the culture it conjures and from which it has grown'. Keith Gallasch,
Real Time No.85, June-July 2008. To read the full review, click here.
'... an invaluable rubik's cube of a book that speaks to us of many wise and dynamic things that are salient to our lives as artists, authors, filmmakers, educators, spectators and citizens who care about cinema and its ongoing aesthetic, cultural and existential potential to help us make sense of our one shared world'. John Conomos,
Screening the Past. To read the full review, click here.
'Brophy's achievement is to make Priscilla
seem a richer experience by his wide-ranging excavations beneath the film's gaudy surface ... Maybe you'd like a clearer guide through the film's journey, but you won't often have so many stimulating landmarks pointed out along the way.' Brian McFarlane,
Australian Book Review
Read an extract of
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (pdf)
For background information about the book and to learn more about Philip Brophy's work, visit www.philipbrophy.com
You might also be interested in Al Clark's production memoir
The Lavender Bus: How a Hit Movie was Made and Sold. For more information, click here.
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-821-7 | PB
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Catharine Lumby
‘A wonderful read: I feel like I've been excavated and carbon dated.’
Graeme Blundell
One of the seminal films of the 1970s,
Alvin Purple depicts Alvin’s struggles with his irresistibility to women—from his school days and time as a waterbed salesman to his short-lived career as a sex therapist. The ‘definitive ocker comedy’,
Alvin Purple survived a critical mauling and went on to become the most commercially successful Australian film of the 1970s.
Catharine Lumby takes a fresh look at the film, the social and political era in which it was made and the forces that fuelled its success. She revisits claims that the movie is little more than an exercise in sexploitation and argues that the film is far more complex than its detractors have allowed.
See other titles in Currency's Australian Screen Classics Series.
Interviews and reviews:
To read our author interview with Catharine Lumby, click here.
Read an extract of
Alvin Purple (pdf)
An extract of Catharine Lumby's critique has also been published in the
Australian. To read, click here.
To read Philip O'Brien's article for the
Canberra Times, click here.
'this admirably lucid and wide-ranging study ... is another feather in the cap of a generally provocative series.' Brian McFarlane, Senses of Cinema. To read the article, click here.
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-844-6 | PB
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Tony Moore
When
The Adventures of Barry McKenzie burst onto the Australian screen in 1972 it created a furore. With ‘Bazza’ (Barry Crocker), the chundering, Fosters-sucking innocent abroad, Barry Humphries and Bruce Beresford created a foil for the audiences. The movie triggered a riotous sequel,
Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, and a wave of ocker comedies that celebrate and critique the Australian national character. With irrepressible humour and sharp-witted insight, Tony Moore explores the subversive satire of the films, their influence on his generation, and what they have to say today.
‘As Prime Minister I demonstrated my gift for ridicule by granting my only imperial honour to the intrinsically conservative Barry Humprhries. It’s time for a book that has fun with the political satire of Barry McKenzie’ The Hon. E.G. Whitlam AC, QC
Moore's fresh, humorous and unpretentious point of view
gives new context to the films. Fiona Press, Times Online. Click here for the complete article.
Extract
See other titles in Currency's Australian Screen Classics Series.
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-748-7 | PB
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Sue Smith
Bastard Boys
is the story of the fight that stopped the nation—the 1998 battle for Australia's waterfront. More than just a dispute over reform, it became a campaign for the hearts and minds of all Australians. Controversial, all-consuming and combative, it forced people to pick a side and fight for their beliefs. Political thriller, war film, buddy movie, love story and courtroom drama all rolled into one, this is the story of the people behind one of the most significant events in Australia's recent past.
Iconic Australian actors Jack Thompson and Colin Friels lead an outstanding cast that includes: Geoff Morrell, Dan Wyllie, Justine Clarke, Rhys Muldoon and Lucy Bell.
Bastard Boys has been written with the cooperation and participation of all parties to the dispute. It is the first time participants such as former Patrick CEO, Chris Corrigan and ACTU Secretary, Greg Combet have agreed to tell their stories.
Review
The world of the wharves, the boardrooms and war rooms are places most of us will never visit or understand. Bastard Boys
takes us there, makes sense and great drama all at once. It’s amazing. - Ruth Richie, Sydney Morning Herald
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-809-5 | Sales rights: worldwide | PB
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The screenplay
Ian David
Set in Sydney in the 1970s and 1980s, this multi-award winning television drama centres on the notorious friendship between drug dealer and robber Arthur Stanley ‘Neddy’ Smith and Detective Sergeant Roger ‘The Dodger’ Rogerson. There’s a pot of gold involved but it doesn’t come easily or cheaply. This is a powerful and frightening story about police corruption and Sydney’s underworld.
Review
Australia’s best ever drama ... riveting viewing
- Jenny Tabakoff, Sydney Morning Herald
Awards
- NSW Premier’s Literary Award - Best Screenplay
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-630-5 | Sales rights: worldwide | PB
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Andrew Frost
Lauded by many as one of the most powerful Australian films made in the past 20 years, Rowan Woods’ stunning debut feature
The Boys touched off a storm of media controversy upon its release in 1998.
The film evoked vivid memories of the 1986 rape and murder of a young Sydney woman named Anita Cobby. Although Woods’ film was fictional,
The Boys remains inextricably connected to its real-life counterpart in the minds of many viewers.
But that connection is only part of the story behind the making of
The Boys. In this thoughtful and thought-provoking essay, Andrew Frost contextualises the major thematic concerns of the film into the broader context of social anxieties about violence, crime and morality.
Frost chronicles his own personal journey with the film and its makers from art school to the underground Super 8 filmmaking scene of Sydney in the mid-1980s, from the early short films of director Woods to the multiple award-winning
The Boys. Frost discovers new aspects of
The Boys even today and wonders if its stinging moral message has been heard among the clamour of
everyday suburban life.
To read an extract from
The Boys go to this PDF
This is the 10th title in the Australian Screen Classics series.
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-862-0 | PB
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The screenplay
Stephen Sewell
Based on the controversial stage playby Gordon Graham,
The Boys is an unflinching analysis of the violence that lurks in Australian society.
Returning home from prison, Brett sets about re-establishing control over his wayward brothers as he searches for an act the three brothers can participate in jointly, and thereby violate norms.
The play of
The Boys is also available.
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-569-8 | Sales rights: worldwide | PB
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Henry Reynolds
Set in central-western New South Wales in the 1890s, Fred Schepisi’s film of Thomas Keneally’s award-winning novel is a powerful and confronting story of a black man’s revenge against an unjust and intolerant society.
Raised by missionaries, Jimmie Blacksmith, a young half-caste Aboriginal man, is poignantly caught between the ways of his black forefathers and those of the white society to which he aspires. Exploited by his boss and betrayed by his [white] wife, he declares war on his white employers and goes on a violent killing spree.
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith was one of the most significant films of the 1970s ‘renaissance’. It was the first Australian feature in which the whole story is told from an Aboriginal perspective and it broke new ground in dealing with one of the most tragic aspects of Australian history: the racist treatment of the Aboriginal population. The spectre of the violent and vengeful black had barely been touched upon and the depth of rage that the film put on screen was unprecedented in Australian film at the time.
To read an extract of Henry Reynolds' critique as published in
The Australian, click here.
'a timely and very important work' Sean Gorman,
Senses of Cinema
'another fine addition to Currency Press’
Australian Screen Classics
series' Keith Gallasch,
Realtime Magazine
To read the whole review, visit realtimearts.net
Read an extract of
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (pdf)
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is the eighth title in our Australian Screen Classics Series.
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-824-8 | PB
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Judy Carter
This is the definitive guide to making a career out of
making people laugh. If you’ve got a sense of humour, you can learn to make a
career out of comedy, says Judy Carter. Whether it’s creating a killer stand-up
act, writing a spec sitcom, or providing jokes for radio or one-liners for
greeting cards, Carter provides step-by-step instructions in
The Comedy
Bible. She helps readers first determine which genre of comedy writing or
performing suits them best and then directs them in developing, refining, and selling
their work.
‘Judy Carter can show you how to make your sense of humour
pay off’. - Oprah
‘
The Comedy Bible is proof God does have a sense of
humour... Until comedians can enrol in a comedy 101 humourversity course at the
school of hard knock-knocks, this is the next best thing.’ Wil Anderson
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-741-8 | AUSTRALIA/NZ | PB
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