The essays in this collection analyse major film adaptations of twentieth-century American fiction, from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon to Toni Morrison's Beloved. During the century, films based on American literature came to play a central role in the history of the American cinema. Combining cinematic and literary approaches, this volume explores the adaptation process from conception through production and reception. The contributors explore the ways political and historical contexts have shaped the transfer from book to screen, and the new perspectives that films bring to literary works. In particular, they examine how the twentieth-century literary modes of realism, modernism, and postmodernism have influenced the forms of modern cinema. Written in a lively and accessible style, the book includes production stills and full filmographies. Together with its companion volume on nineteenth-century fiction, the volume offers a comprehensive account of the rich tradition of American literature on screen.

Introduction R. Barton Palmer; 1. Filming an unfinished novel: The Last Tycoon Robert Sklar; 2. The texts behind The Killers Thomas Leitch; 3. Turning The Day of the Locust into a film Chris Ames; 4. Ship of Fools: from novel to film Robert H. Brinkmeyer Jr.; 5. Intruder in the Dust and the Southern community Mark Royden Winchell; 6. The dramatization of Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding McKay Jenkins; 7. Film and narration: two versions of Lolita Robert Stam; 8. World War II through the lens of Vietnam: adapting Slaughterhouse-Five to film Rodney Allen; 9. John Huston's Wise Blood Matthew Bernstein; 10. Genre and authorship in David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch Steffen Hantke; 11. Screening Raymond Carver: Robert Altman's Short Cuts Robert Kolker; 12. The Color Purple: translating the African American novel for Hollywood Allen Woll; 13. The specter of history: filming memory in Beloved Marc C. Conner; 14. Filming the spiritual landscape of James Jones's The Thin Red Line R. Barton Palmer.