When Stories Travel: A Review of Transcultural Film Adaptation
Abstract
Transcultural film adaptation has long been an obscure branch of adaptation studies, yet its history is equivalent to the film adaptation, and almost as long as cinema. Since its ongoing and growing adaptation activities are inconsistent with insufficient and limited theoretical research, this study reviews transcultural film adaptation research to bring fresh insights into the adaptation area. Based on adaptation research results, it alludes to related studies, such as cross-cultural communication and international communication, and defines transcultural film adaptation-related terms. It then reviews comparative case study method and fidelity studies to, on the one hand, summarize the research methodology and adaptation strategies and, on the other hand, respond to the two foundational questions surrounding adaptation raised by Leitch: the value of case study and the notion of fidelity. Instead of attacking fidelity or exaggerating the value of creativity, this paper contends that a reconciling relationship exists between fidelity and creativity in transcultural film adaptation, i.e. the creative transformation of culture.
Downloads
References
Alfaro, M. J. M. (1996). Intertextuality: Origins and development of the concept. Atlantis, 18(1), 268–285. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/637582.pdf
Andrew, D. (1984). Concepts in Film Theory. Oxford University Press.
Aririguzoh, S. A. (2022). Communication competencies, culture and SDGs: effective processes to cross-cultural communication. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01109-4
Bailey, T. (2019). Intellectual spaces in screenwriting studies: The practitioner-academic and fidelity discourse. Journal of Screenwriting, 10(1), 29–39. https://doi.org/10.1386/josc.10.1.29_1
Bakhtin, M.M. (1981), The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (M. Holquist, & C. Emerson, Trans.). University of Texas Press. (Original work published 1929).
Ballinger, G. (2021). Adapting Wives and Daughters for television: Reimagining women, travel, natural science, and race. Adaptation, 15(1), 84-99. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apab005
Barthes, R. (1978). Image-Music-Text (S. Heath, Trans.). Hill and Wang. (Original work published 1977).
Bazin, A. (2005). What is cinema?: Volume I (H. Gray, Trans.). Univ of California Press. (Original work published 1958).
Bluestone, G. (1957). Novels into Film. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Boozer, J. (2008). Authorship in Film Adaptation. University of Texas Press.
Brink, P. J. (1994). Editorial: Transcultural versus cross-cultural. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 16(4), 344-346. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/019394599401600401
Bruhn, J., Gutowska, A., Tornborg, E., & Knust, M. (2021). Transmediation. In J. Bruhn, & B. Schirrmacher (Eds.), Intermedial Studies (pp. 138-161). Routledge.
Cahir, L.C. (2006). Literature into Film: Theory and Practical Approaches. McFarland & Company.
Cambridge Dictionary. (n.d.). Adaptation. In Cambridge Dictionary online. Retrieved July 11, 2023, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/adaptation?q=Adaptation
Canudo, R. (2021). The Birth of The Sixth Art. In S. MacKenzie (Ed.), Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures (pp. 593-602). University of California Press.
Cardwell, S. (2002). Adaptation revisited: Television and the classic novel. Manchester University Press.
Cartmell, D., & Whelehan, I. (1999). Adaptations: From Text to Screen, Screen to Text (1st ed.). Psychology Press.
Cartmell, D., & Whelehan, I. (2005). Harry Potter and the fidelity debate. In M. Aragay (Ed.), Books in Motion: Adaptation, Intertextuality (pp. 37-49). Rodopi. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401202756_005
Choe, J. (2020). The Brontës in Haute Couture: a sartorial adaptation of literary texts. Adaptation, 14(1), 96-108. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apaa018
Cieślak, M. (2021). Adaptation in the digital era: The case of Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf. Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance, 14(1), 41-51. https://doi.org/10.1386/jafp_00041_1
Cook, B., & Bancroft, T. (1998). Mulan [Film]. Walt Disney Pictures.
Corrigan, T. (2017). Defining Adaptation. In T. Leitch (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studie (pp. 23-35). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199331000.013.1
Dawkins, R. (1976). The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press.
Della C. C. (2012). When stories travel: Cross-Cultural Encounters Between Fiction and Film. JHU Press.
Desmond, J., & Hawkes, P. (2015). Adaptation: Studying Film and literature. McGraw-Hill.
Eyo, L.Y., Suboh, R., & Salleh, M. (2021). Intercultural Communication: A study on music as an element in the wayang kulit of Kelantan. Wacana Seni Journal of Arts Discourse, 20, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.21315/ws2021.20.1
Gadamer, H. G. (1995). Truth and Method. Continuum.
Garcia, J. D. (2005). Creative Transformation: A Practical Guide for Maximizing Creativity. Whitmore Publishing.
Gudykunst, W. B. (2003). Cross-Cultural and intercultural communication. Sage.
Hermansson, C. (2015). Flogging Fidelity: in defense of the (Un)Dead horse. Adaptation, 8(2), 147-160. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apv014
Hodgkins, J. (2013). The Drift: affect, adaptation, and new perspectives on fidelity. A&C Black.
Hoskins, C., & Mirus, R. (1988). Reasons for the US dominance of the international trade in television programmes. Media, Culture & Society, 10(4), 499–515. https://doi.org/10.1177/016344388010004006
Hsiung, A. (2021). Mulan’s travel from ballad to movie: A case study of inter-modal translation. Translation Studies, 15(1), 69–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/14781700.2021.1984288
Hu, Z.F., & Liu. J. (2020). A Guide to Media Arts. Beijing Normal University Press.
Hutcheon, L. (2006). A theory of adaptation. Routledge.
Hutcheon, L. and O’Flynn, S. (2013). A theory of adaptation (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Jeon, J. Y. (2022). Romeo at the Girls’ School: Fantasy of the Girls’ Queer Teen Adaptation of Shakespeare. Adaptation, 15(3), 381–401. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apac008
Krakauer, S. (1997). Theory of Film : the Redemption of Physical Reality. Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1960).
La Pastina, A. C., & Straubhaar, J. D. (2005). Multiple Proximities between Television Genres and Audiences. Gazette, 67(3), 271–288. https://doi.org/10.1177/0016549205052231
Leitch, T. (2003). Twelve fallacies in Contemporary adaptation Theory. Criticism-a Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, 45(2), 149-171. https://doi.org/10.1353/crt.2004.0001
Leitch, T. (2008). Adaptation studies at a crossroads. Adaptation, 1(1), 63–77. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apm005
Leitch, T. (2017). Introduction. In T. Leitch (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studie (pp. 1-20). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199331000.013.41
Lin, Y. S. (2011). The Creative Transformation of Chinese Traditions. SDX Joint Publishing Company.
Marotta, V. (2014). The multicultural, intercultural and the transcultural subject. In F. Mansouri & B. E. B’béri (Eds.), Global Perspectives on the Politics of Multiculturalism in the 21st Century A case study analysis (pp. 90–102). Routledge.
McClain, K. J. (2023). Engaging with an Imperfect Past: Simultaneity and the Many Stories within Director Rashid Johnson’s Native Son. Adaptation, 16(1), 63-78. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apad004
McFarlane, B. (1996). Novel to Film: An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation (1st ed.). Clarendon Press.
Meikle, K. (2013). Rematerializing Adaptation Theory. Literature/Film Quarterly, 41(3), 174-183. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43798874
Mendelson, S. (2020, September 30). China Box Office: ‘Mulan’ Is One of Disney’s Worst-Performing Remakes. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2020/09/30/china-box-office-mulan-is-one-of-disneys-worst-performing-remakes/?sh=7a593f434c67%20.%20Accessed%20on%2011%20July%202023
Muchnick, J. (2023). The Brick-Built Sea: Adapting the Odyssey in LEGO. Adaptation, 16(1), 79-95. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apad006
Murray, S. (2008). Materializing Adaptation Theory: The Adaptation Industry. Literature/Film Quarterly, 36(1), 4-20. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43797393
O’Connell, B. (2020). Think of All the Differences!’: Mixed Marriages in transcultural adaptations of Chaucer’s ‘Man of Law’s Tale.’ Adaptation, 15(1), 7-21. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apaa036
Oxford English Dictionary. (n.d.). Multicultural. In Oxford English Dictionary online. Retrieved July 11, 2023, from https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=multicultural
Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. (n.d.).Fidelity. In Oxford English Dictionary online. Retrieved July 11, 2023, from https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/fidelity?q=Fidelity
Perdikaki, K. (2018). Film adaptation as the interface between creative translation and cultural transformation: The case of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. Journal of Specialised Translation, 29(1), 169-187. http://www.jostrans.org/issue29/art_perdikaki.php
Pereira, M. E. (2021). Transnational Adaptations: The Nineteenth-Century Novel Revisited through a Transcultural Lens. In P. Ferstl (Ed.), Dialogues between Media (pp. 423-434). Walter de Gruyter.
Phillips, L. (2022). Mickey goes to Haiti and leaves: Disney’s transnational quest for cheap labor in the post-Cold War era. International Labor and Working-class History, 101, 144–163. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0147547922000072
Qi, L. (2023). Ballet diplomacy: Political agency in the Japanese adaptation of The White-Haired Girl. Adaptation, 16(1), 13-39. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apac017
Raw, L. (2012). Translation, Adaptation and Transformation. Continuum International Pub. Group.
Ray, R. B. (2000). The Field of 'Literature and Film’. In J. Naremore (Ed.), Film Adaptation (pp. 38-53). Athlone.
Rendell, J. (2021). ‘I am (not) Major’: anti-fan memes of Paramount Pictures’ Ghost in the Shell marketing campaign. New Review of Film and Television Studies, 19(2), 173–199. https://doi.org/10.1080/17400309.2021.1905396
Rohn, U. (2011). Lacuna or Universal? Introducing a new model for understanding cross-cultural audience demand. Media, Culture & Society, 33(4), 631–641. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443711399223
Said, E.W. (1983). The World, the Text, and the Critic. Harvard University Press.
Schwanebeck, W. (2019). The Twin Who Came from Abroad: The Comedy of Errors and Transcultural Adaptation. Shakespeare, 16(1), 90-99. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450918.2019.1636854
Schwartz, B. I. (2020). Reflections on the May Fourth movement. BRILL.
Song, L., & Xie W. T. (2020, September 11), Disney’s Mulan story fails to win Chinese audience. Global Times. https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1200622.shtml
Stam, R. (2000). Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation. In J. Naremore (Ed.), Film Adaptation (pp. 54-67). Rutgers.
Stam, R. (2017). Revisionist Adaptation: Transtextuality, Cross-Cultural Dialogism, and Performative Infidelities, in T. Leitch (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studie (pp. 239-250). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199331000.013.13
Stam, R., & Raengo, A. (2004). Literature and film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation. Wiley-Blackwell.
Stephens, J., & Lee, S. (2018). Transcultural Adaptation of Feature Films: South Korea’s My Sassy Girl and its Remakes. Adaptation, 11(1), 75–95. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apy001
Stewart, M. G., & Munro, R. (2020). Intercultural Screen Adaptation. Edinburgh University Press.
Straubhaar, J. D. (1991). Beyond Media Imperialism: Asymmetrical Interdependence and Cultural Proximity. Critical Studies in Mass Comunication, 8(1), 39–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295039109366779
Ting‐Toomey, S., & Chung, L. C. (2021). Understanding intercultural communication. Oxford University Press.
Tong, Z. (2022). Analysis of Mulan’s Poor Reception in China from the Perspective of Orientalism. African and Asian Studies, 21(4), 344–366. https://doi.org/10.1163/15692108-12341570
Udall, N. (1996). Creative Transformation: A design perspective. Journal of Creative Behavior, 30(1), 39–51. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.1996.tb00756.x
Uribe-Jongbloed, E., & Espinosa-Medina, H. D. (2014). A clearer picture: Towards a new framework for the study of cultural transduction in audiovisual market trades. Observatorio, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.15847/obsobs812014707
Uribe-Jongbloed, E., Espinosa-Medina, H. D., & Biddle, J. W. (2016). Cultural transduction and intertextuality in video games. In C. Duret and C. M. Pons (Eds.), Contemporary Research on Intertextuality in Video Games (pp. 143-161). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0477-1.ch009
Uribe-Jongbloed, E.,& Aristizábal, M.A.C. (2019). The Adaptation of Don Camillo through the Cultural Transduction Framework: From Italian Bestseller to Franco-Italian Film to a Colombian TV Series. Adaptation, 12(1), 44-57. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apy020
Welsch, W. (1999). Transculturality: The Puzzling form of Cultures Today. In M. Featherstone, & S. Lash (Eds.), Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World (pp. 194-213) Sage.
Whelehan, I. (2013). Adaptation: The Contemporary Dilemmas. In D. Cartmell, & I. Whelehan (eds.), Adaptations: From Text to Screen, Screen to Text (pp. 1-17). Routledge.