Instr:                 Jill Zellmer
Office:              CRT 568,     229-6047
e-mail:              zellmer@uwm.edu
Office hours:     by appointment.

Course Information:          TR  1:30-3:20   CRT 104

Course Description

In an effort to predict how her novel The Color Purple would fare on the silver screen, Alice Walker asked Steven Spielberg what his favorite movie was.  His reply, Gone With The Wind, horrified Walker who primarily associated that film with degrading stereotypes of African Americans.  Ultimately, however, she was satisfied with Spielberg’s adaptation of her novel.  Most writers face this dilemma: will the integrity of their work be preserved when it is made into a film? The stakes are even higher when the writer is female, a person of color, working class, and/or homosexual and their novel explores controversial issues.  Since many adaptations are produced by major film corporations with the goal of attracting mainstream audiences, writers whose work is not mainstream have legitimate concerns about how their novels will be adapted to film.  In this course, we will explore how such novels fare when major studios or independent filmmakers create the movie version. We will also discuss how novels and films do/do not compliment each other as well as consider each genres’ particular advantages and disadvantages in terms of reaching/engaging audiences, conveying particular themes, and achieving the work’s purpose.  The course will consist of reading novels paired with movie screenings then followed by course discussion.

Novel and Movie Pairs:
The Color Purple
A Lesson Before Dying
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Beloved
Smoke Signals
Milagro Beanfield War
Joy Luck Club
Bastard Out of Carolina
Snow Falling on Cedars
Ethan Frome