Starting out with Romeo & Juliet this time around teaching this course changed the course into a Shakepeare course! I was just trying to start with something everybody had already read...


What can texts do that films can’t?

Do novels have a structure, a narrative, which is not altered by medium (books, film)?

How is time different in novels and in film?

Some films are “real time”
24 (the tv show) is “real time”

Most films have “a clock”
“The clock” determines how time is perceived by the audience

Pacing also does this

What does film do that texts can't?

One thing that films do is control the "look" and "characterization" of the characters and the world of the work more tightly than do books.

When you read a book, you "picture" what things look like. You imagine what characters sound like, how their genstures are -- the author describes these to you, but reading requires care and imagination.

How are the characters different?

The roles actors play generally shift dramatically from the original text to the film, depending on the actors' skills and "look", the directors' "vision", etc.

How does the author describe the characters?

How were the characters established in the film?

Were roles altered? Added? How?

How is the atmosphere different?

Would you have read that in the book? I.e., how much of current events at the time of the books writing did you bring to it? Did you bring today’s current events to it instead? Why? Was that good? Bad?

How did your perceptions of each of the characters change?

Romeo & Juliet

Because Romeo & Juliet is such an important work
of literature, and such an interesting story,
it has been made into many movies.

It has been made into many different types of movies as well.

West Side Story is Romeo & Juliet!

Romeo + Juliet is a version of the play set in modern times.