A Theory of Adaptation

Hutcheon writes about adaptation in terms of the way audiences engage with the material rather than the material itself. There are multiple ways to engage with a story such as being told, being shown, or physically interacting. Hutcheon makes a point about how we can define adaptations better by thinking about the process of how the audience interacts with the story instead of defining what medium it is. She writes a great deal about all of the different types of adaptations and ways of making them. For instance, many adaptations involve a great deal of cutting down the story of the original. But some adaptations, for example of a short story, the author would need to add a great deal to enhance the story. Also using different types of expression can change the meaning of a scene that is otherwise the same as the original. Something that resonated with me was how the use of music can greatly affect the mood of a viewer. So for example if someone adapted a play into a movie, and there was a scene in the film that was basically the same as in the play except for the music playing. The music could affect the mood of the scene and make the viewer think about it in a different way than they normally would. The part of the writing that resonated the most with me was the analogy on page 19 of an artist looking at a landscape. If he has pencils he will notice different ways to illustrate than if he has a paintbrush. This is like seeing the original work as the landscape, and all the different ways to interpret or adapt it would be the artists different tools such as pencils or paint. Overall this reading was dense with information on adaptations and hard to take it all in at once.

Questions, 1. The main question I was thinking about when reading this is why would someone adapt something that they did not like or think did not live up to it's possibilities. I can understand adapting works that you like, but I don't understand why someone would adapt what they like of a story and then leave out the rest. To me that is too much like changing it and making your own story. I think if there are ideas you like in a story you want to adapt, you can make your own story with similar ideas. It's not very original or interesting to recycle part of what worked in one story because you can't figure out a way to make it fully work as a new story.