Fantasy Fiction into Film

This work examines the symbolism of fantasy fiction, literal and figurative representation in fantastic film adaptations, and the imaginative differences between page and screen. Essays focus on movies adapted from various types of fantasy fiction—novels, short stories and graphic novels—and study the transformation and literal translation from text to film in the Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Howl’s Moving Castle, Finding Neverland, The Wizard of Oz, Wicked and Practical Magic.

Leslie Stratyner, a professor of English at Mississippi University for Women, lives in Columbus, Mississippi.

James R. Keller is a professor and chair of the English and Theatre department at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky. The author or editor of numerous works about popular culture, he lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

Edited by Leslie Stratyner and James R. Keller
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 207
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2007
pISBN: 978-0-7864-3057-4
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1135-8
Imprint: McFarland

Introduction: Fantasy Fiction into Film      1

1. Three Rings for Hollywood: Scripts for The Lord of the Rings      7
2. I Don’t Think We’re in Kansas Anymore: Peter Jackson’s Film Interpretations of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings      21
3. “‘Tree and flower, leaf and grass’: The Grammar of Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings”      35
4. “My brothers, I see in your eyes the same fear”: The Transformation of Class Relations in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy      55
5. The Lion, the Witch, and the War Scenes: How Narnia Went from Allegory to Action Flick      73
6. The Lion, the Witch and the Multiplex      80
7. Buckets of Money: Tim Burton’s New Charlie and the Chocolate Factory      93
8. Charlie’s Evolving Moral Universe: Filmic Interpretations of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory      103
9. The Americanization of Mary: Contesting Cultural Narratives in Disney’s Mary Poppins      115
10. Animating the Fantastic: Hayao Miyazaki’s Adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle      124
11. From Book to Film: The Implications of the Transformation of The Polar Express      140
12. From Peter Pan to Finding Neverland: A Visual Biomythography of James M. Barrie      150
13. From Witch to Wicked: A Mutable and Transformational Sign      163
14. From Private Practice to Public Coven(ant): Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic and Its Hollywood Transformation      178

About the Contributors      187
Index      191