‘Am I becoming a one hundred-and-eighty-five pound fly?’: The Gestation of The Fly

The Fly ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 37-58
Author(s):  
Emma Westwood
Keyword(s):  
Short Fiction ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
Central Concept

This chapter evaluates British writer George Langelaan's short fiction titled ‘The Fly’ (1957), and its film adaptation by Kurt Neumann in 1958. David Cronenberg's The Fly (1986) can only truly be appreciated within the context of what preceded it. He was not remaking an unknown film; rather, he was taking on one that came with preconceptions and expectations. In considering Cronenberg's The Fly, one can clearly see that remaking the original 1958 film was not on Cronenberg's agenda. While Cronenberg's film should not be compared to any other because it has ‘its own personality, voice and experience’, to consider The Fly's history gives meaning to the simple genius of the central concept: the story of a scientist accidentally turning himself into a fly.

‘Wheels have been set in motion’: Geocentrism and Relativity in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liliane Campos
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Quantum Uncertainty ◽  
Galilean Relativity ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
20Th Century Physics ◽  
Time Specific ◽  
Do So

By decentring our reading of Hamlet, Stoppard’s tragicomedy questions the legitimacy of centres and of stable frames of reference. So Liliane Campos examines how Stoppard plays with the physical and cosmological models he finds in Hamlet, particularly those of the wheel and the compass, and gives a new scientific depth to the fear that time is ‘out of joint’. In both his play and his own film adaptation, Stoppard’s rewriting gives a 20th-century twist to these metaphors, through references to relativity, indeterminacy, and the role of the observer. When they refer to the uncontrollable wheels of their fate, his characters no longer describe the destruction of order, but uncertainty about which order is at work, whether heliocentric or geocentric, random or tragic. When they express their loss of bearings, they do so through the thought experiments of modern physics, from Galilean relativity to quantum uncertainty, drawing our attention to shifting frames of reference. Much like Schrödinger’s cat, Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are both dead and alive. As we observe their predicament, Campos argues, we are placed in the paradoxical position of the observer in 20th-century physics, and constantly reminded that our time-specific relation to the canon inevitably determines our interpretation.

Becoming Present, Becoming Absent: Movement and Visual Form in the Film Adaptation of Comédie

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-180
Author(s):  
David Foster
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
Visual Form ◽  
Sergei Eisenstein ◽  
Basic Framework ◽  
Global Movement ◽  
Local Movement

This article examines the use of movement and visual form in the film adaptation of Samuel Beckett's Comédie (Marin Karmitz, 1966). The article broaches the kinetic elements of the work through addressing the manner in which the diegetic motion of the film can be seen to reflect extra-diegetic cinematic processes. The sense of movement that is created through Comédie's montage is then considered at length, making use of work on this theme by two quite different (though tangentially related) theorists: Sergei Eisenstein and Jean-François Lyotard. The article then charts the film's different manifestations of formal movement, and a basic framework is proposed to explain the manner in which the film creates moments of intensity, through what is termed the ‘local movement’ of the montage, and the manner in which the film manifests an overall curve of intensity, through what is termed the montage's ‘global movement’. It is argued that each form of montagic motion is reflected in the other, and that ultimately these movements might be seen to dramatise a human drive towards, and a concomitant flight from, an impossible state of ontological totality.

Islamic-Secular Dialogue in the Arab World

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 63-89
Author(s):  
Mohammed El-Msaoui
Keyword(s):  
Action Theory ◽  
Communicative Action ◽  
Arab World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Political Sphere

Many debates between Islamists and secularists have taken place in the Arab political sphere with the aim of building bridges of communication between the two actors who contributed to the transformations that have taken place in the Arab world. Despite the multiple dialogues between Islamists and secularists, conflict and tension have prevailed on both sides, with conflict taking on all forms of material and moral violence. One of the most significant indicators of the crisis in communication is the emergence of violence. That being so, this study broaches the problem using Habermas’s basic idea, which focuses on violence as a disease of human discourse and communication. According to Habermas, violence is the result of distorted discourse between fundamentalists and others; it is a distorted discourse because it does not recognize the other as it is. The study employs the Habermas communicative action theory as a central concept. Accordingly, Habermas’s theory of communication is invoked to understand the causes of the escalation of violence in the Arab political sphere.

Evaluating Large-Scale STEM Outreach Efficacy with a Consistent Theme: Thermodynamics for Elementary School Students

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph DeWilde ◽  
Esha Rangnekar ◽  
Jeffrey Ting ◽  
Joseph Franek ◽  
Frank S. Bates ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Elementary School Students ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
College Education ◽  
School Students ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Specific Goal ◽  
Survey System ◽  
Society Today

A biannual chemistry demonstration-based show named “Energy and U” was created to extend the general outreach themes of STEM fields and a college education with a specific goal: to teach the First Law of Thermodynamics to elementary school students. Energy is a central concept in chemical education, most STEM disciplines, and it is the concept at the foundation of many of the greatest challenges faced by society today. The effectiveness of the program was analyzed using a clicker survey system. This study provides one of the first examples of incorporating real-time feedback into large- scale chemistry-based outreach events for elementary school students in order to quantify and better understand the broader impact and learning outcomes.

DRAMATIC ELEMENTS IN DASHNER’S MAZE RUNNER NOVEL AND FILM ADAPTATION

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-88
Author(s):  
Anggia Putria ◽  
Muizzu Nurhadi
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Descriptive Qualitative

The research aims to reveal how the application of dramatic elements of Dashner’s Maze Runner is transformed into its film adaptation. To achieve the purpose, the researcher analyzes seven dramatic elements by Gustav Freytag’s Pyramid which consist of exposition, inciting moment, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and denouement. This research uses the descriptive qualitative method. The results of this research are the differences of the dramatic elements in the novel and film adaptation are not significant because only the scenes of exposition and rising action are not similar.

‘...Insured against the tyranny of time’.Knut Hamsun’s last play and an unknown Russian film script

2018 ◽  
pp. 76-102
Author(s):  
T P. Lonngren
Keyword(s):  
Film Adaptation ◽  
State Archive ◽  
Short Summary ◽  
Russian State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theatrical Play ◽  
Russian Film

After a short summary of the story behind K. Hamsun’s play In the Grip of Life [Livet i Vold], its plot and stage history in Russia, the article proceeds to tell about an unknown film script. Cinematic adaptations of Hamsun’s books have always dominated Norwegian literature, while none of his dramatic pieces have made it to the screen. However, a film script was uncovered, an adaptation of In the Grip of Life: a play specially written for a Russian theatre. The script was found in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts, among the documents of Evgeny Sergeevich Khokhlov. Based on the history of filmmaking and relevant filmography, Khokhlov’s film script is not just the only attempt at film adaptation of a Hamsun play, but the first ever project based on a theatrical play in Russian cinematic history. Written almost 100 years ago, the script is far from perfect in the modern understanding of filmmaking; nonetheless, it has certain merits in the eyes of contemporaries. The very attempt to interpret the play by means of a nascent artistic genre may be considered a proof of its relevance to Russian audiences at the time.

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