Theoretical Approaches to Film Adaptation

Transformation Theory

Unlike the translation and pluralist approach to film adaptation, evaluations based on a transformation approach consider the film a completely autonomous entity, while the novel is considered the "raw material" to be altered as significantly as necessary (Balazs 1952, Bluestone 1957). Critical discourse evolving from the transformation paradigm considers the film and novel to be two separate arts "constituted by distinctly different sign systems" (Kline, 73). The traditional hierarchy with the novel as the privileged form of art is reversed, as literature becomes mere raw material for the film.

George Bluestone argues "one cannot in the last analysis argue with a filmwriter's perogative to take liberties with his literary models…[T]he final standard, the one to which we must always revert, is whether regardless of thematic, formal and medial mutations, the film stands up as an autonomous work of art. Not whether the filmmaker has respected his model, but whether he has respected his own vision"(110-111). Like the translation and pluralist approaches, transformation emphasizes the differences between each medium as the basis for evaluation providing a filter in which to make an evaluation (Kline, 74).

In evaluating the movie A Thousand Acres, Brandon Stahl believes the film A Thousand Acres, cannot stand up on its own merits: "I've never read Jane Smiley's "A Thousand Acres," nor have I read Shakespeare's "King Lear," which is what the new movie "A Thousand Acres" is supposed to be based off of...… the film version of "A Thousand Acres" is pretty far from entertainment. It's a lot like sitting around your house on a Saturday afternoon with nothing to do. You turn on the TV and watch without caring if it's good or bad - it's just on. That's what "A Thousand Acres" is - it's just on. It's not at all good, but then, it's not that bad. You just sit, drifting off into space asking, "Well, what else am I going to do?"

Steve Rhodes provides criticism of the assumptions behind the transformation approach itself:
"A book with all the right ingredients does not a script make. Nor will the casting of great acting talent a movie make. It takes more than the right raw materials to fashion a compelling film narrative."