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(links for general elements, case studies, links)

 

Case Studies of Film Adaptation
-------->2001: a space odyssey

film:  2001:  A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
text:  "The Sentinel" (Clarke, 1951)


This work is a a bit different.  Although 2001 is based on a short story, it also inspired a novelization.  Critic Morris Beja explains this unusual relationship:  "In 1964, Stanley Kubrick contacted Clarke with the idea of collaborating on a science fiction film, and eventually Clarke recalled his short story, and from then on the history of the writing of the film and the novel was quite unusual.  At Kubrick's urging, they agreed to work together on writing a prose treatment-which in effect was the draft of a novel-before writing a script."

This idea that composing a film from a prose work is preferable to staring with an original screenplay seems an appropriate culmination of the idea that writing and film are complementary art forms.  It is particularly noteworthy that Kubrick insisted on a prose basis for a one hundred and forty-one minute feature that includes only forty-three minutes of dialogue.  In 2001 and "The Sentinel," the relationship between the written and visual is symbiotic.