Hello! My name is Arushi Grover, and welcome to my passion blog for ENGL 137H: RCL: Adaptation! Through this blog, I aim to explore the world of narrative adaptations, and I invite you on this journey of analysis, criticism, and learning. In this blog, each post, after this introductory one, will focus on one case of narrative adaptation.

These may be, for example:

• An literary analysis of the differences between, say, Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s 1959 stage musical, The Sound of Music, and the 1965 film adaptation of the same name, focusing on the changes in the narrative 
• An exploration of the differences between Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 stage musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and the 2007 film of the same name, in terms of the perception of musical narrative on the screen versus the stage
• A critique on two adaptations of Puccini’s 1904 opera, Madama Butterfly, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s 1989 musical, Miss Saigon, and Henry David Hwang’s 1988 play, M. Butterfly, in terms of social-political implications 
• A rant on the subject of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, and Baz Lurhmann’s 2013 film of the same name, in terms changing genres and medium
• An exploration of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and its role in the 2019 film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Original title: Portrait de la jeune fille en feu) 
• A good-faith critique of the 2014 film “The Theory of Everything” and its depiction of the life of astrophysicist Stephen Hawking

The mediums I am interested in are novels, short stories, poems, plays, films, musicals, operas, and songs. Some adaptations involved translations across mediums, in which the language, conventions (including genre conventions), and history of the respective mediums may be important in understanding the works in question. I aim to take each blog post to discuss one case of adaptation—in terms of genre, the author, historical context, cultural context, medium, etc.—and through these explorations, I aim to better understand works of narrative, the nature of adaptations, and what “adaptation” and “adaptations” are. 

Some guiding questions will be: 

• How does the change in the medium affect the content of the story? 
• What constitutes an “adaptation”? Do portrayals of public and historical figures count as “adaptation” in their building on cultural knowledge? 
• How do adaptations interact with and play with the time in which they are made and the time in which their original work was made? 
• How does one apply auteur theory to adaptations? Should one? Should one follow a “death of the author” approach instead? 

And lastly, to illustrate my specific narrative interests, I must say that I love French existentialist and absurdist plays, Shakespeare’s works, American musicals from the Golden Age, French operas, Taylor Swift’s oeuvre, and space movies! 

• My favorite work of all time: Fleabag – Season 2 (2019)
• My favorite musicals:
  • Carousel (1945) 
  • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979)
• My favorite movies:
  • La La Land (2016)
  • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
  • Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Other things I just really like:

• Portrait d’une jeune fille en fer (2019 film)
• Huis clos (Sartre’s play) 
• First Man (2018 film) 
• “All Too Well” (Taylor Swift’s 2012 song) 
• The Shape of Water (2017 film)
• Call Me By Your Name (2017 film) 
• The Virgin Suicides (1999 film)
• Melancholia (2011 film)
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (play) 

Works I like to think about:

• Inglourious Basterds (Tarantino’s 2009 film) 
• Hadestown (Anais Mitchell’s 2019 stage musical) 
• Passion (Stephen Sondheim’s 1994 film) 

I look forward to exploring narrative adaptations through this blog, and I invite you to join me on this journey of exploring the subject! I aim not to instill my own view on the value of these works, but to communicate the nuances and questions that arise in considering and understanding works of narrative, and I hope that you enjoy!