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This chapter explores Heritage Audience Survey respondents' conceptions of ‘quality’ in relation to the period films they watched, and their positioning in relation to the ‘literary’ pleasures offered by many period films (including, but not solely with reference to, literary adaptations), as well as attitudes and expectations in relation to adaptation itself. The function of period films as a substitute for reading classic novels or factual history, or going to the theatre, was given as a (or the) primary reason why the respondent enjoyed them. In addition to the ‘British cinema’ attitude statement, the questionnaire had pre-suggested two pleasures: ‘seeing leading British actors/actresses at their best’ and ‘pride in seeing British cinema at its best’ — which conflated the notions of ‘quality’ with ‘Britishness’. Many respondents associated American cinema with an inauthenticity not confined to period detail. National Trust subsamples' self-worded replies confirmed that at least some of them did indeed believe that recent, particularly post-1980, British period films and television dramas were superior to those of earlier decades, centrally due to their scrupulous ‘authenticity’.

This chapter analyzes certain common genres and their relation to prevailing sociopolitical and cultural conditions in the Arab countries. From the conventions and subjects of the respective film genres, it is possible to gather information about the refusal or rehabilitation of indigenous culture, about myths and symbols contributing to the formation of identity, as well as about attitudes toward Western ideology and ideas such as socialism, materialism, laicism, and individualism. For this purpose some of the genres—precisely, literary adaptations, realist and historical films, and cinéma d'auteur—that seem to contribute notably to the construction, or deconstruction, of certain effective political discourses are examined. The close relation between literature and cinema is not an Arab peculiarity, but an international phenomenon.

This chapter looks at Heritage Audience Survey respondents' self-worded testimonies to explore what these — and wider survey evidence — revealed about their viewing positions, film tastes, attitudes and expectations in relation to period films (including heritage films), as well as their dispositions and orientations in relation to a variety of critical questions around ‘heritage film’. Respondents were invited to express their views in their own words in response to open questions asking what they most enjoyed, or did not enjoy, about the period films they watched. This analysis also draws upon two multiple-choice elements in the survey questionnaire: a list of twenty-eight pre-suggested ‘pleasures’ (visual pleasures and pleasures of narrative), which respondents might hypothetically find in period films, and a list of seventy-four attitude statements, expressing a range of views, opinions or positions in relation to period films, ‘quality’ literary adaptations, and the suppositions of existing discourses around these. Finally, the chapter discusses the discourse of authenticity as well as pleasures of engagement and disengagement.

Amateur film studio “Yug-Film” existed in the remote Russian town of Buguruslan for about four decades from 1957. During the years of its existence Yug-Film produced over 15 films, eight of them feature-length. These films were mainly screen adaptation of Russian classical literature - Chekhov, Paustovsky and Pushkin. Far from the ambitious world of major studio cinema, or from the cultural institutions of Moscow and Leningrad, the community of Buguruslan created their films to express their affection for the classics - a naïve and selfless pursuit that demonstrates the strong presence of the two “most important arts,” literature and cinema, at all the levels of Russian culture. The work of “Yug-Film” is unusual in that the studio did not rely on trade-unions for funding at the time when amateur cinema in the Soviet Union existed on the balance of the huge state-run machine developed to promote amateur arts and filmmaking in particular.

This chapter analyses the demographic backgrounds of respondents of the Heritage Audience Survey and a wider range of indicators of identity, with some comparative reference to the demographics of the wider cinema audience in the 1990s (and the thinner existing evidence on the demographics of film audiences in the United Kingdom for specific period films) as established in the limited publicly available industry sources. The chapter identifies the distinguishing features of the two subsamples, highlighting those most resonant in relation to the heritage-film debate, and those of likely relevance in interpreting and understanding respondents' particular tastes, orientations and attitudes in relation to period films. Mindful of the very specific links between class fraction, class identity and educational capital on the one hand, and ‘cultural capital’, cultural preferences and formation of film tastes on the other, this chapter takes an interest in a varied range of indicators of respondents' identities — from self-reported sexual orientation to minutiae of schooling, university types, literary adaptations and heritage films, and occupational cultures.

This chapter uncovers the new generic guises assumed by the melodramatic mode after the cultural revolution—the ‘literary adaptation’ and the ‘bytovaia drama’ (the drama of everyday life). From the late 1930s, the Stalin-era screen saw an influx of films about the problems of contemporary byt which set new standards of gender relations, ethics, and morality in Soviet society through melodramatic unmasking of discrepancies between seeming and being, public duty and private desire. Offering tear-jerking portrayals of gender and social exploitation of the pre-revolutionary era, screen adaptations of literary classics similarly deployed the melodramatic mode to articulate the new contours of Soviet morality. Whilst the melodrama’s moral Manichaeism was highly amenable to Stalinism’s inquisitorial drive to unmask the ‘true’ essence of the individual, filmmakers struggled to fully align the affective structures of melodrama with the new demand for ‘optimistic tragedies’ that would inspire confidence in the power of the human will and arouse a desire to fight injustice. Even as Stalinist melodramas took on obligatory happy endings, their pathos continued to rest on the representation of insurmountable conflicts. The imperative of establishing an emotionally direct mode of address during the Great Patriotic War secured the continued release of dramas that drew audience tears by staging the dislocation of desire and fulfilment and placing the spectator in a position of powerlessness. The leniency towards melodramatic pathos did not persist into peacetime; in the post-war period, the ideological task of moral education came to dwarf the considerations of emotional effectiveness. Yet industry discussions reveal that even as post-war Stalinist cinema experienced a ‘waning of affect’, pressures to make Soviet cinema more emotionally resonant were steadily mounting behind the scenes.

This chapter investigates the nine-year period between Martel’s third and fourth features. It argues that after completing the Salta trilogy, the director deliberately sought to alter the direction of her career. The project of adapting the sci-fi graphic novel, El Eternauta, even though ultimately abandoned, points toward her making of Zama, while several of the surreal shorts made during this period allow glimpses of what her sci-fi film might have looked like. Other shorts, both from this period and earlier, highlight her interest in the fate of Argentine native populations, which becomes very important in Zama, while also pointing to her current work in progress.

Her latest feature to date, Zama, is a groundbreaking achievement. This chapter argues that Martel’s adaptation of Di Benedetto’s novel turns the modernist text into a postcolonial vision of the past that radically reimagines the position of women, slaves, and indigenous populations. Combining both meticulous research and a stunning artistic imagination, Zama provides a representation of the colony that refutes most North American and European productions while also exceeding efforts by contemporary Latin American filmmakers. Building on, and exceeding previous thematic concerns and stylistic preferences, the film must count as one of the most accomplished and complex films of the 21st century.

This chapter will look at Duvivier’s first forays into filmmaking, and chart the development of the Duvivier ‘touch’ over a decade of working in silent film. It will explore the visual aspects of the silent films and allow continuities and consistencies to be traced between these early works to show a director developing a singular style and then refining it in the later, more technically accomplished films post-1930. In 1925, Duvivier joined the production company 'Film d’Art’, where he worked for nine years, and where he honed his expertise on collaborating groups of artists and technicians on a number of consecutive projects. Such collaborative working methods would serve him well throughout his career. The chapter also pay close attention to those silent films which had a religious subject - Credo ou la tragédie de Lourdes (1924), L’Agonie de Jérusalem (1927) and La Vie miraculeuse de Thérèse Martin (1929) - a film about the Carmelite saint Thérèse of Lisieux. The chapter concludes with an in-depth look at Duvivier’s most famous silent film, Au Bonheur des dames (1930), an adaptation of Emile Zola’s classic novel, starring Dita Parlo.

Written on the cusp of antiquity and the Middle Ages, Boethius' treatise De consolatione philosophiae was among the most influential works in the literary culture of medieval Europe. This chapter offers a narrative history of its reception in Old and Middle English, with contextualizing discussion of the medieval Latin and French traditions. The Consolatio first emerged into English literature around the turn of the tenth century, in a strikingly independent translation traditionally ascribed to King Alfred. A second great episode of Boethian literature began with Chaucer's writings late in the fourteenth century. Both early and late, the text was valued as a compendium of poetry and classical lore; an authoritative synthesis of ancient philosophy; a model of dialectical method; and an artfully crafted first-person narrative of embattled virtue. The focus of this chapter is on the textual forms of the Consolatio's reception—commentary, adaptation, and translation—and on reinterpretations of its ethical teaching.

This chapter focuses on Hungarian director István Szabó's so-called Mitteleuropa trilogy: Mephisto (1981), Colonel Redl (1985), and Hanussen (1988). Szabó has protested against the widely held assumption that Mephisto, Colonel Redl, and Hanussen make up a trilogy. They nevertheless share a number of important elements, thematically, historically, stylistically and in terms of personnel. Whether taken as a whole or considered separately, these three feature films constitute a major cinematic examination, treatment and engagement with the individual and his or her place within the troubled history of Central Europe. The films are also a consolidation and development of the shift away from a mode of filmmaking which worked within and sometimes experimented with various forms of New Wave and modernist practices, to a more transparent and linear style which hovers somewhere between classical Hollywood, commercial art cinema, literary adaptation and, at times, historical costume drama.

After accepting an excellent offer from MGM in 1933, Selznick fostered a relationship with MGM composer Herbert Stothart. As with Steiner at RKO, Selznick’s penchant for longer scores helped jump-start the composer’s career. In contrast to Steiner’s drive for wholly “original” scores at RKO, however, Stothart preferred interweaving classical selections—a method born of the silent era that Selznick found attractive, even preferable. This chapter focuses on Stothart’s creative arranging of works by Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and others in a series of literary adaptations, including Night Flight (1933), David Copperfield (1935), Vanessa: Her Love Story (1935), Anna Karenina (1935), and A Tale of Two Cities (1935). Through these films, Selznick and Stothart fashioned a music model for the prestige film that Selznick carried forward in his independent productions.

This chapter deals with Harlan’s switch from fast-paced comedies to high-minded, brooding art films. Maria, die Magd (Maria, the maid, 1936) is both a showcase for his wife Hilde Körber, who has never acted in a film before, and an exploitation of her intense humorlessness that borders on hysteria. It also features a future Harlan trademark, a rescue operation at night on a lake, something Harlan himself experienced as a child. As expected, it is more an artistic than a commercial success, but it brings Harlan to the attention of two internationally famous stars, silent-screen legends Lil Dagover and Emil Jannings. Dagover, who enjoys a measure of independence as a producer-actress, chooses Harlan to direct an adaptation a Leo Tolstoy’s novel, Die Kreutzersonate (The Kreutzer Sonata, 1937), which despite its unremitting bleakness turns out to be a popular success and is distributed by UFA, Germany’s most prestigious film company.

In 1935, Selznick left MGM to become an independent producer. His company, Selznick International Pictures, was to specialize in prestige films like those he had produced at MGM. His first project as an independent, Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), emphasized this continuity. Like David Copperfield, one of his last films at MGM, Fauntleroy was a sentimental adaptation of a nineteenth-century novel depicting a boy’s coming of age. Selznick International Pictures, however, had to find a different composer. Because Herbert Stothart was contractually bound to MGM, Selznick borrowed previous collaborator Max Steiner from RKO as chief music director and composer for the new company. Selznick and Steiner worked well together on Fauntleroy and the exotically situated The Garden of Allah (1936). Mutual goodwill, however, dissolved on A Star Is Born (1937), for which Selznick rejected much of Steiner’s music. The resultant break forced Selznick to expand his circle of preferred composers.

Understanding the musical collaboration behind Selznick’s films does not require embracing every one of the producer’s decisions—some missed their mark. But Selznick’s productions do invite a re-evaluation of dominant prejudices in film-music discourse regarding, the involvement of a non-musicians in the scoring process, the sharing of compositional duties among multiple personnel, and film music’s relationship to commercial interests. These factors are crucial to understanding music’s function in Selznick’s films and its success within films and beyond. Although Selznick’s emphasis on film music reflected priorities born of prestige filmmaking (and literary adaptations in particular), his musical ideas spread far beyond these categories in the hands of other filmmakers. A concluding section shows that the mosaic-like construction of scores for Selznick presents not a crisis of authorship, but rather an opportunity to assess the dynamic and messy collaborations that produced some of Hollywood’s most memorable scores.