Through the "magic mirror": Adapting Angela Carter's Japanese writings for the silver screen

Crofts, Charlotte

Abstract

This article outlines the development of a feature-length screenplay adaptation of Angela Carter’s short story “Flesh and the Mirror,” situating it within a critical discussion of her metaleptic narrative strategies and the challenges of translating them to the screen.The screenplay incorporates Carter’s Japanese short stories and journalism, which are said to be her most autobiographical writings.The article explores Carter’s attitude to life writing and highlights the dangers of a straightforward biographical adaptation, contextualizing her Japanese writings within her wider engagement with Japanese literature and the I-novel. It demonstrates how the screenplay aims to emulate Carter’s playful experimentation with narrative form, overlapping metaphors of magic mirrors, puppetry, theater, and film sets, attempting a delicate balancing act of transposing Carter’s “literary gymnastics” to the silver screen.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 7, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Feb 24, 2023
• Publication Date: Jul 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Aug 27, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 28, 2023
• Journal: Contemporary Women's Writing
• Print ISSN: 1754-1476
• Electronic ISSN: 1754-1484
• Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 16
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 263-282
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/cww/vpad001
• Keywords: Angela Carter, Japan, Autobiography, I-novel, Adaptation, Literature and Literary Theory, Gender Studies
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7714320
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/cww/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cww/vpad001/7056665?login=false