The Great Gatsby meets Alain Badiou: Rethinking fidelity in film adaptation is an open-access book published by AOSIS Scholarly Books.
The subject of this book is a consideration of the usefulness of the concept of fidelity put forward by the philosopher Alain Badiou in the discussion of film adaptation. Fidelity or faithfulness is primarily a consideration that emerges in relation to so-called canonical texts in adaptation: Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby occupies a position of global recognisability and, within the United States, cultural mythology that has triggered strong reactions to the four Hollywood adaptations. The various adaptations allow for the differing approaches to the adaptation of this novel to be meaningfully explored. The film adaptations’ paratextual elements are discussed in order to show how these acted as limiting lenses. The strategies of the films for handling elements of Fitzgerald’s prose and themes are compared across the adaptations. The book concludes by asserting the worth of a larger application of a Badiouian fidelity within the field.
Copyright (c) 2023 Ursula S. Vooght (Author)
Ursula Vooght’s work should be of great interest to scholarly readers. Vooght has written an excellent book, not merely through making accessible any theorised explanations of methodological decisions but by bringing into the whole a visual, cultural and critical sense of how different film producers and directors, actors and
different film critics responded to and continue to respond to The Great Gatsby, in its times, adapting it into films that also speak to their times. She has worked with a variety of visual and textual products and responses (film, text, posters and critical work) and engaged with the values contested at the literary heart of this wonderful novel and often wonderful films. Using Badiou’s theories and the specific concept of fidelity, Vooght has produced an authoritative and very readable book.
Prof. Dr Gina Wisker, International Centre for Higher Education
Management, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom