Angela Carter’s “three dimensional storytelling”: Adaptation, intermediality and textual transmogrification

Crofts, Charlotte

Abstract

This paper will explore the translation of Angela Carter’s work into different media, through an analysis of Carter’s own involvement with various adaptations of her work across radio and film, together with a critical reflection on a practice-research project adapting Carter’s Japanese writings for the screen. The paper begins by outlining Carter’s role in adapting her own work, including her radio plays (Vampirella (1976), The Company of Wolves (1980) and Puss in Boots (1982)) and two film adaptations, The Company of Wolves (Neil Jordan, 1984) and The Magic Toyshop (David Wheatley, 1987). The paper then focuses specifically on The Company of Wolves, delineating Carter’s multiple retellings of Perrault’s ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ across the literature/media divide, developing my earlier argument (Crofts, 1999 & 2003) that the film’s diegetic werewolf transformations offer a useful lens through which to explore Carter’s textual transformations, both formally and in terms of subject-matter. The paper will then explore Jakobson’s theory of “Intersemiotic transposition,” and linked concepts of transduction and transmutation, in relation to the notion of (werewolf) transmographication, exploring the intersections between translation theory (Benjamin 2002, Jakobson 1959) and adaptation theory (Hutcheon 2006, Sanders 2006) to interrogate the reciprocal, dialogic relationship between source and target texts. Drawing on original interviews with Stephen Woolley and Neil Jordan, producer and director, respectively, of The Company of Wolves, the paper will then emphasise the importance of grounding a theoretical analysis within real world contexts, situating the process of adapting a text within the constraints of screen industries and acknowledging that authorial intention is often circumscribed by the pragmatics of the industrial systems of film production. The paper then moves on briefly to reflect on the challenges of adapting Carter’s short story ‘Flesh and the Mirror’ (collected in Fireworks 1974), arguing that rather than a distraction from the central project of analysing Carter’s literary texts, an examination of her writing for other media, in tandem with an evaluation of the process of adapting her work, enables us to see the role of textual transformation, of various kinds, as integral to her writing practice.

References
Benjamin, Walter (2002). ‘The Task of the Translator’. In Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings (eds) Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 1 1913-1926. Fifth printing. Cambridge, MA and London, England: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, pp.253-63.

Crofts, Charlotte (1998). ‘Curiously Downbeat Hybrid or Radical Retelling?: Neil Jordan's and Angela Carter's The Company of Wolves’. In Cartmell, Hunter, Kaye and Whelehan (eds), Sisterhoods Across the Literature / Media Divide, London & Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, pp.48-63.

Crofts, Charlotte (2003). Anagrams of Desire: Angela Carter’s Writing for Radio, Film and Television. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Crofts, Charlotte (2006). ‘The other of the other: Angela Carter's" New-Fangled Orientalism"’. In Becky Munford (ed.), Re-visiting Angela Carter: Text, Contexts, Intertexts. Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.87-109.

Hutcheon, Linda (2006). A Theory of Adaptation. London: Routledge.

Jakobson, Roman (1959). ‘On Linguistic Aspects of Translation’. In Brower, R (ed.) On Translation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 232-239.

Sanders, Julie (2006). Adaptation and Appropriation. London: Routledge.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Angela Carter’s “three dimensional storytelling”: Adaptation, intermediality and textual transmogrification - The world is made of words: Angela Carter translator–Angela Carter in translation, Angela Carter society annual conference, 2020
• Start Date: Oct 8, 2020
• End Date: Oct 9, 2020
• Deposit Date: Jan 5, 2023
• Keywords: Angela Carter; Translation: Adaptation
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10289817