John Fowles wrote five compelling stories later made into motion pictures. This book examines for the first time the film and video adaptations of these stories, as well as Fowles’s role in adapting his literary genius to visual media. Besides his authorship of the screenplay for The Magus (1968), Fowles was an uncredited contributor to The Collector (1965) and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1971), and to the British television adaptations The Ebony Tower and The Enigma. His unpublished short story “The Last Chapter” was adapted as a theatrical short film satirizing the James Bond novels. Few are aware that the 1997 thriller The Game was a brilliant adaptation of The Magus, or that Fowles himself acted out scenes from that novel for a Greek television documentary. This book gives deserved recognition to John Fowles as a contributor to cinema, a medium he both loved and distrusted, where his stories acquired vivid alternative lives.

James Aubrey is a professor of English at Metropolitan State University of Denver, where he teaches British and world literatures as well as film studies. He has published numerous articles on literature and three previous books.

Edited by James Aubrey
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 204
Bibliographic Info: 17 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2015
pISBN: 978-0-7864-9764-5
eISBN: 978-1-4766-2230-9
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vi
Introduction (James Aubrey) 1
Bluebeard’s Basement: The Collector on Film (Eileen Warburton) 13
Cinematic Godgames: The Magus on Film (James Aubrey) 35
Undercover Hero: The Last Chapter on Film (Michelle Buchberger) 53
Safe Dreams: The Enigma on Video (Michelle Buchberger) 77
Situating Sarah: The French Lieutenant’s Woman on Film (Carol Samson) 101
Rhizome and Romance: The Ebony Tower on Video (Dianne Vipond) 129
The Magus as Thriller: David Fincher’s Film The Game (James Aubrey) 150
Postmodern Documentary: The Return of the Magus on Video (Craig Svonkin) 162
Works Cited 181
About the Contributors 187
Index 189