On Screen – serie

Television and film, not libraries or scholarship, have made Charles Dickens the most important unread novelist in English. It is not merely that millions of people feel comfortable deploying the word 'Dickensian' to describe their own and others' lives, but that many more people who have never read Dickens know what Dickensian means. They know about Dickens because they have access to over a century of adaptations for the big and small screen. Because Dickens has proven to be the most easily adapted of major novelists, he has become, somewhat ironically, one of the foremost novelists in the English canon. This is ironic because it was just this capacity to entertain that once confined him to the margins of the 'great tradition' in fiction. Dickens on Screen is an invaluable resource for students and scholars alike. It provides an exhaustive filmography and is well illustrated.

Jane Austen on Screen is a collection of essays exploring the literary and cinematic implications of translating Austen's prose into film. Contributors raise questions of how prose fiction and cinema differ, of how mass commercial audiences require changes to script and character, and of how continually remade films evoke memories of earlier productions. The essays represent widely divergent perspectives, from literary 'purists' suspicious of filmic renderings of Austen to film-makers who see the text as a stimulus for producing exceptional cinema. Theoretical issues are explored in balance with the practical concerns of literature-to-film conversions: casting choices, authenticity of settings, script 'amputations' of the original prose, anachronisms, relevance for modern mass audiences, and the intertextuality informing the production of much-remade works. This comprehensive study, including an exhaustive Austen bibliography and filmography, will be of interest to students and teachers alike.

Jane Austen on Screen is a collection of essays exploring the literary and cinematic implications of translating Austen's prose into film. Contributors raise questions of how prose fiction and cinema differ, of how mass commercial audiences require changes to script and character, and of how continually remade films evoke memories of earlier productions. The essays represent widely divergent perspectives, from literary 'purists' suspicious of filmic renderings of Austen to film-makers who see the text as a stimulus for producing exceptional cinema. Theoretical issues are explored in balance with the practical concerns of literature-to-film conversions: casting choices, authenticity of settings, script 'amputations' of the original prose, anachronisms, relevance for modern mass audiences, and the intertextuality informing the production of much-remade works. This comprehensive study, including an exhaustive Austen bibliography and filmography, will be of interest to students and teachers alike.

Television and film, not libraries or scholarship, have made Charles Dickens the most important unread novelist in English. It is not merely that millions of people feel comfortable deploying the word 'Dickensian' to describe their own and others' lives, but that many more people who have never read Dickens know what Dickensian means. They know about Dickens because they have access to over a century of adaptations for the big and small screen. Because Dickens has proven to be the most easily adapted of major novelists, he has become, somewhat ironically, one of the foremost novelists in the English canon. This is ironic because it was just this capacity to entertain that once confined him to the margins of the 'great tradition' in fiction. Dickens on Screen is an invaluable resource for students and scholars alike. It provides an exhaustive filmography and is well illustrated.

David Cronenberg’s films stand collectively as one of the great achievements in cinema. Fearless, imaginative and provocative, as well as intelligent and refreshingly disturbing, his work expresses a unique personal vision.More than simply ‘the baron of blood’ or the ‘king of venereal horror’, Cronenberg has long transcended these early attempts to label him. Through five decades of parasites, plastic realities, creative destruction and the rise of the new flesh – here is a filmmaker uniquely suited to dissect our mutating relationship with sex, death and technology.David Cronenberg On Screen presents a new survey of his extraordinary career, from early, experimental shorts and body-horror explorations, to commercial success with The Fly and Dead Ringers, and on to his celebrated and sometimes controversial literary adaptations. This volume also considers his excursions as an actor; key collaborators; television and advertising; and his new phase as a novelist. Cronenberg’s recurring themes are explored along the way: psychological transformation revealed in physical mutation, disease as an agent of change, violence, alternative sexualities, and the viral nature of desire.In our hyper-connected world of pandemic fear and mutable identities, the films of David Cronenberg are as relevant as ever