Christa Albrecht-Cranes andDennis Cutchins introduction to AdaptationStudies: New Approaches confronts the definitional issue head-on. Theyargue that the term "adaptation" might be a misnomer to describe thetransformative process involved in creating a target text, since it assumesthat "sameness forms its operative lens" (17). Instead they propose adefinition (which they term "translation") that emphasizes the differencesrather than the similarities between source and target texts (19). This is veryclose to the model of transformation advanced in Beyond Adaptation. On this view adaptation is perceived as areworking of a source text into a new "language." It is the adaptation criticstask to decode that "language, and the social, cinematic, historical andpolitical codes that shape it.
Several contributors to Adaptation Studies: New Approachesaccomplish this task admirably. Mark OThomas reminds us of the closerelationship between "adaptation" and "translation" in some contexts: theFrench-Canadian theatre practitioner Robert Lepage coined the term"tradaptation" to describe "the annexing of old texts to new culturalmeanings," designed to "force the target culture to confront itself through itsexposure to the rewritten original" (51). Examples of this include SatyajitRays The Home and the World (1984),a version of Ibsens Enemy of the People.
Thomas Leitch and RichardBergers essays look at the ethics of adaptation: Leitch believes with somejustification that the adaptive process depends on a series of compromisesbetween backers, producers, stars, technicians, publicists and even stagemothers (62). Berger looks at this process in detail by showing how censorshiphas dictated the ways in which adaptations are produced. This was particularlytrue during the Hollywood studio period, when the Motion Picture ProductionCode was rigorously applied; but it still prevails today. Berger quotes theexample of Joe Wrights version of Ian McEwans Atonement (2007), which refrains from having the actors utter the word"cunt," for fear of offending the intended audience (157).
Other contributors show how filmadaptations place emphasis on every aspect of the mise-en-scne. Christa Albrecht-Crane likens Lost Highway (1997) to a musical fugue, an "aesthetic experiencethat seems to focus in rendering the intricate dynamic of a problematicrelationship in a contrapuntal, intensely heightened, and episodic way" (256).The collection concludes with an illuminating essay by W. D. Phillips on earlycinema and adaptation. At a time when copyright laws had not been passed,directors repeatedly plagiarized texts, which made a mockery of the distinctionbetween "originals" and "copies." Yet they should not be blamed for this:Phillips argues that most of them were trying to test films validity as adramatic composition, designed to attract mass audiences (254).
