Stam’s The Man! Answer the following questions on Stam’s Literature Through Film
Please bring this two-sided completed handout to class on Wed 2 Dec. AND 9 Dec.
1. Stam’s book “provides an historicized account of” what? p. 1
2. Stam’s “hope is not only to address literature and film scholars, but” do what? p. 2
3. According to Stam, what is the tension that nourishes all art? p. 2
4. What are some of Stam’s arguments against fidelity? pp. 3-4
5. What are the five types of ‘intertextuality’ put forward by Genette? pp. 4-5
6. According to Stam, what are some of the political questions raised by genre? pp. 6-7
7. Where did neologism ‘realism’ come from and what was it first used to describe? p. 7
8. Does Stam regard Homer’s The Odyssey as western literature? p. 8
9. Is Don Quixote from Spain, the first ever novel? p. 8
10. To which philosophical movement is “The valorization of realism” connected? P. 9
11. What are some of the “broad tendencies [that] co-exist within the spectrum of definitions
of cinematic realism”? pp. 10-11
12. According to Stam, what is reflexivity? pp. 12-13
13. How does Stam define “magical realist” in one sentence? p. 13
14. What are some of the parallels between film and dreams? pp. 13-14
15. What diminishes the modernist potential of the cinema? pp. 14-15
16. Who is Sir Thomas Bertram and how is his character reimagined in a recent film
adaptation of Mansfield Park? P. 16.
17. Why have the problems of imperialism been neglected in early film and literature
according to Stam? p. 17
18. What is a disadvantage of formalism according to Said? p. 18
19. In Stam's study, what kind of narrators do modernist novels usually have? p. 19
D.H. Lawrence’s ‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’ and two film adaptations of it
1. Read D.H. Lawrence’s short story “The Rocking-Horse Winner”. It’s on our website*.
2. Watch the TWO film adaptations hosted in Dropbox and linked from our website*.
3. Answer these questions
1. As you watch the films, look at what has been kept, added, or dropped and try to discuss
examples of all three.
1983 Version
2002 Version
2. How do the characters, their roles, and time on screen compare between versions?
1983 Version
2002 Version
3. Andrew describes adaptations as a ‘barometer for the age’. How might these two different
films illustrate this point?
* http://yunus.hacettepe.edu.tr/~jason.ward/ or use the shortened url: http://goo.gl/WkYkWV