106-240 Novel and Film

Note

Available as 106-340 at 3rd-year level.

Credit Points

Coordinator

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

This subject will teach students how to read films and novels in some detail - and in relation to one another. By focusing on particular texts, it will also help students answer such questions as: why do film adaptations consistently represent society more blandly than their original texts? Is there a literary equivalent to films' visual and narrative pleasures? Students who complete this subject successfully will have an understanding of the formal and technical differences between the novel and the film, the techniques of reading the apparatus of mainstream films, the way each medium is placed in contemporary society, and how each text is treated in contemporary critical debates.

Assessment

Written work of not more than 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• F Bordwell, Film Art: An Introduction. 3rd ed McGraw Hill.
• J Cain, Double Indemnity. Random.
• J Conrad, Heart of Darkness. Norton.
• J Fenimore Cooper, Last of the Mohicans. Pan.
• M Puig, Kiss of the Spider Women. Picador.
• Films: H Babenco, Kiss of the Spider Woman.
• F Coppola, Apocalypse Now.
• M Mann, The Last of the Mohicans.
• B Wilder, Double Indemnity.