Group Questions

1. Group Questions • What’s missing from the film? What’s added? How do the omissions or additions change the meaning of the original text? Or are there only minor ways that the deletions/additions modify aspects of the original novella?

2. Group Questions • When you think about the film, what sorts of images, scenes or other elements stay with you—which do you remember most vividly? Do the sorts of elements emphasized in the film carry the same emphasis in the original novella? In other words, what sorts of images, scenes and other elements of the book do you remember most vividly?

3. Group Questions • Is the film successfully ambiguous? In other words, does it allow a viewer to see the film one way, with Miss Gibbons as insane, as well as see the film another way, where Miss Gibbons is the only adult able to see the ghosts and thus save the children from possession? How is it ambiguous, or how isn’t it?

4. Group Questions • How does the book help us understand the film better? How does the film help us understand the book better?

5. Adaptations • Many approaches to adapting a verbal/print text: • Loose adaptationMight use only the original situation, story idea or characters

6. Adaptations • Faithful adaptationAttempt to recapture the text as closely as possible. Retains the characters, storylines and most events from the text.

7. Adaptations • Literal adaptationOlder video versions of play productions, with limited use of cinematic techniques.

8. Other Modes of Adaptation • Created by Rachel Malchow: • AcculturatedSame characters, plot, and theme, but shifts language and setting to a new context. • PoliticizedMaintains loyalty to original text,but re-focuses the theme to “update” the text.

9. Other Modes of Adaptation • Hollywood-izedAlters the character, plot, themes to appeal to a mass audience. • The Radical HomageHighly innovative, unconventional version of the original text through use of allusions.