This book is the first full-length study to focus on the various film adaptations of Patricia Highsmith’s novels, which have been a popular source for adaptation since Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1952). The collection of essays examines films such as The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Two Faces of January, and Carol, includes interviews with Highsmith adaptors and provides a comprehensive filmography of all existing Highsmith adaptations. Particular attention is paid to queer subtexts, mythological underpinnings, philosophical questioning, contrasting media environments and formal conventions in diverse generic contexts. Produced over the space of seventy years, these adaptations reflect broad cultural and material shifts in film production and critical approaches to film studies. The book is thus not only of interest to Highsmith admirers but to anyone interested in adaptation and transatlantic film history.
Table of Content
1. Introduction: Patricia Highsmith on Screen, Douglas Mc Farland and Wieland Schwanebeck.- 2. The Dark Side of Adaptation, Thomas Leitch.- Section I: Doubles, Copies, and Strangers.- 3. “I Meet a Lot of Guys–But Not Many Like You”: Strangers and Types in Highsmith’s and Hitchcock’s
Strangers on a Train, Bran Nicol.- 4. Strangers on a Park Bench: From Highsmith to Alfred Hitchcock to Woody Allen, Klara Stephanie Szlezák.- 5. Tom Ripley’s Talent, Murray Pomerance.- 6.
Ripley Under Ground and Its Illegitimate Heirs, Wieland Schwanebeck.- Section II: Queer Encounters.- 7. Queer Ripley: Minghella, Highsmith, and the Anti-Social.- David Greven.- 8.
The Price of Salt,
Carol, and Queer Narrative Desire(s), Alison L. Mc Kee.- 9. “Easy Living”: From
The Price of Salt (78) to
Carol (EP), Robert Miklitsch.- Section III: Aesthetic, Mythic, and Cultural Transaction.- 10. Adapting Irony: Claude Chabrol’s
The Cry of the Owl, Douglas Mc Farland.- 11. With Friends Like These: Wim Wenders’
The American Friend as Noir Allegory, Christopher Breu.- 12. Hans Geissendörfer’s Psychological Noir: West-German Adaptations of Patricia Highsmith Novels, Erin Altman and William Mahan.- 13. Authorship and Scales of Adaptation in
Chillers, Kristopher Mecholsky.- 14.
The Two Faces of January: Theseus and the Minotaur, Catherine Mc Farland.- Section IV: Adapters in Conversation.- 15. Memories of
The American Friend, Wim Wenders.- 16. ‘Highsmith really writes films’, Hans W. Geißendörfer.- 17. “An interesting lack of sentimentality’, Hossein Amini.- 18. “Highsmith was the queen of guilt’, Phyllis Nagy.
About the author
Wieland Schwanebeck is Assistant Lecturer at the Institute of English and American Studies at Dresden University of Technology, Germany. He has recently edited
Reassessing the Hitchcock Touch (2017).
Douglas Mc Farland is Retired Professor of English and Classical Studies at Flagler College, USA. He is the co-editor of
John Huston as Adaptor (2017).
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