The Bad and the Beautiful: Public Persona and Genre in Three Film Adaptations of William Faulkner

Abstract

Direct study of the film adaptations of the works of William Faulkner’s is relatively rare, and many of the few examples are still based entirely on the notion of textual fidelity as opposed to the more modern approach of intertextuality. With the aim of providing such an approach, this project purposes that adaptations of Faulkner novels can actually be seen as reflections of his developing popular persona at certain times in his career, and that the ways in which this persona is perceived by the filmmakers plays a large role in each film’s adaptive and thematic expression. This adaptive process occurs under the heavy influence of both popular genre narratives and a variety of surrounding social and cultural contexts, all of which must be investigated if one is to fully explore the intertextual relationship between film and source.