To be specified published in:
English Text Construction
Vol. 10:1 (2017) ► pp. 6–20
article

Remodelling homologies

Adaptation between betrayal and incommensurability

| Vrije Universiteit Brussel
The November 1997 issue of Index magazine featured a rather unusual piece by avantgardist John Jesurun, which apparently had surprised even the editors – and this despite having commissioned the contribution themselves. Building on the already troubled conversion from James M. Cain’s 1941 novel Mildred Pierce to the 1945 film produced by Jerry Wald via multiple screenwriters and many more rewrites, this essay approaches the theme of betrayal so conspicuous in both works less from the narrative angle than from a processual angle inspired by the principle of incommensurability. To this end, it juxtaposes the ‘classical’ adaptation from the Hollywood studio era with Jesurun’s experimental reimagining of the betrayal theme as a homology-based remodelling.
Keywords: adaptation, homology, incommensurability, John Jesurun, Mildred Pierce
Article outline
  • 1.Enthusiastic stealing
  • 2.Complex conversions
  • 3.Materializing incommensurability
  • 4.Capturing complexity
  • 5. Noir narration
  • 6.Concretized coda
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 15 June 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.10.1.01col
References
Baker, Noel
1997 Hard Core Road Show: A Screenwriter’s Diary. Toronto: Anansi.Google Scholar
Bassnett, Susan
2006 Translating genre. In Genre Matters: Essays in Theory and Criticism, Garin Dowd, Lesley Stevenson & Jeremy Strong (eds). Bristol: Intellect, 85–95.Google Scholar
Behlmer, Rudy
1985 Inside Warner Bros.: 1935–1951. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Beulow, George J
1990 Originality, genius, plagiarism in English criticism of the eighteenth century. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 21 (2): 117–128. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Boozer, Jack
2008 The screenplay and authorship in adaptation. In Authorship in Film Adaptation, Jack Boozer (ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press, 1–34.Google Scholar
Bortolotti, Gary R. & Linda Hutcheon
2007 On the origin of adaptations: Rethinking fidelity discourse and ‘success’ – biologically. New Literary History 381: 443–458. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bruhn, Jørgen
2013 Dialogizing adaptation studies: From one-way transport to a dialogic two-way process. In Adaptation Studies: New Challenges, New Directions, Jørgen Bruhn, Anne Gjelsvik & Eirik Frisvold Hanssen (eds). London: Bloomsbury, 69–88.Google Scholar
Collard, Christophe
2011 Adaptation in transition: A semiology-based assessment of the ‘fidelity’ debate. English Text Construction 4 (1): 18–28. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2017 Travelling at the speed of thought: John Jesurun in conversation with Christophe Collard. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 1151: 12–23.Google Scholar
Defays, Daniel
1997 Numbo: A study in cognition and recognition. In Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought, Douglas Hofstadter (ed.). London: Penguin, 131–154.Google Scholar
Dewey, John
1979 [1934] Art as Experience. New York: Paragon.Google Scholar
Diehl, Karen
2005 Once upon an adaptation: Traces of the authorial on film. In Books in Motion: Adaptation, Intertextuality, Authorship, Mireia Aragay (ed.). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 89–124.Google Scholar
Eco, Umberto
1986 Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Eliot, Thomas Stearns
1921 The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism. New York: Walter A. Knopf.Google Scholar
1922 The Waste Land. New York: Boni & Liverlight..Google Scholar
Elleström, Lars
2013 Adaptation within the field of media transformations. In Adaptation Studies: New Challenges, New Directions, Jørgen Bruhn, Anne Gjelsvik & Eirik Frisvold Hanssen (eds). London: Bloomsbury, 113–132.Google Scholar
Elliott, Kamilla
2003 Rethinking the Novel/Film Debate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Forbus, Kenneth D
2001 Exploring analogy in the large. In The Analogical Mind: Perspectives from Cognitive Science, Dedre Gentner, Keith J. Holyoak & Boicho N. Kokinov (eds). Cambridge: MIT Press, 23–58.Google Scholar
Garrett, Greg
1995 The many faces of Mildred Pierce: A case study of adaptation and the studio system. Literature/Film Quarterly 29 (4): 287–292.Google Scholar
Hayles, N. Katherine
2012 How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis. Chicago: Chicago University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Helbo, André
2006 Signes du spectacle: Des arts vivants aux médias. Brussels: PIE-Peter Lang. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hirose, Naoya
2002 An ecological approach to embodiment and cognition. Cognitive Systems Research 3 (3): 289–299. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hoopes, Roy
1982 Cain. New York: Holt.Google Scholar
Hofstadter, Douglas
2001 Analogy as the core of cognition. In The Analogical Mind: Perspectives from Cognitive Science, Dedre Gentner, Keith J. Holyoak & Boicho N. Kokinov (eds). Cambridge: MIT Press, 499–538.Google Scholar
Hutcheon, Linda
2011 Moving forward: The next stage in adaptation studies. In Adaptation and American Studies: Perspectives on Research and Teaching, Nassim Winnie Balestrini (ed.). Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 213–218.Google Scholar
Jesurun, John
1993 Breaking the relentless spool of film unrolling. Felix 1 (3): 64–69.Google Scholar
1997 Mildred Pierce remake/remodel. Index November: 58–63.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno
2005 Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
LaValley, Albert J
2008  Mildred Pierce: A troublesome property to script. In Authorship in Film Adaptation, Jack Boozer (ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press, 35–62.Google Scholar
Leitch, Thomas
2003 Twelve fallacies in contemporary adaptation theory. Criticism 45 (2): 149–171. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013 When adaptations go bad. Plenary lecture given at the 8th Annual Conference of the Association of Adaptation Studies (AAS) “Disturbing Adaptations” , Linnaeus University, 27 September 2013.
Moss, Stephen
2005 A history of plagiarism (not my own work). The Guardian 23 November: G2/21.Google Scholar
Murray, Simone
2012 Materializing adaptation theory. In Film and Literature: An Introduction and Reader, Timothy Corrigan (ed.). 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 365–384.Google Scholar
Naremore, James
2000 Film and the reign of adaptation. In Film Adaptation, James Naremore (ed.). London: Athlone, 1–16.Google Scholar
Palmer, R. Barton
2004 The sociological turn of adaptation studies: The example of film noir . In A Companion to Literature and Film, Robert Stam & Alessandra Raengo (eds). Oxford: Blackwell, 258–277. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Peirce, Charles Saunders
1958 Collected Papers Volume 21. C. Harthorne & P. Weiss (eds). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schober, Regina
2013 Adaptation as connection: Transmediality reconsidered. In Adaptation Studies: New Challenges, New Directions, Jørgen Bruhn, Anne Gjelsvik & Eirik Frisvold Hanssen (eds). London: Bloomsbury, 89–112.Google Scholar
Schrader, Paul
2005 Notes on film noir . In Film Genre Reader III, Barry Keith Grant (ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press, 229–242.Google Scholar
Stam, Robert
2007 The theory and practice of film adaptation. In Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation, Robert Stam & Alessandra Raengo (eds). Oxford: Blackwell, 1–52.Google Scholar
Walkenhorst, Birgit
2005 Intermedialität und Wahrnehmung: Untersuchungen zur Regiearbeit von John Jesurun und Robert Lepage. Marburg: Tectum.Google Scholar
Remodelling homologies