APPRECIATING ADAPTATIONS A Case Study into the Relationship between Fidelity to the Source Text and the Appreciation of Adaptations
Summary
This thesis contributes to the fidelity-debate in adaptation studies. Separate elements of the film adaptations were graded to examine what the audience considers important filmic categories for an adaptation to be faithful to the novel. The filmic categories that were analysed are Scene, Environment, Acting, Atmosphere, Dress and Emotion. Two Jane Eyre adaptations were used, the 2006 version by Susanne White and the 2011 adaptation by Cary Fukunaga. A questionnaire was used to gather data on viewers’ response to two textual and four visual fragments of Jane Eyre. The participants had to answer questions about the resemblance between film and novel, and graded the fragments. The research showed that Scene and Dress have to be faithful to their source text for the audience to appreciate the adaptation.