Type of Document	Dissertation
Author	Hollyfield, Jerod Ra'Del
Author's Email Address	jholly1@lsu.edu
URN	etd-04152011-201728
Title	Framing Empire: Victorian Literature, Hollywood International, and Postcolonial Film Adaptation
Degree	Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Department	English
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Rastogi, Pallavi Committee Chair Freedman, Carl Committee Member May, John Committee Member Weltman, Sharon Committee Member Zhou, Gang Dean's Representative
Keywords	postcolonial cinema Victorian novel adaptation film adaptation
Date of Defense	2011-04-06
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract This dissertation examines how adaptations of Victorian literature made in Hollywood by postcolonial filmmakers contend with the legacy of British imperialism and Hollywood’s role as a multinational corporate entity. Highlighting the increased number of postcolonial filmmakers adapting Victorian literature in Hollywood, the project demonstrates how film adaptation has become a strategy for, in the words of Salman Rushdie, “writing back” to imperial powers. Placing such adaptations of Victorian literature within the tradition of postcolonial rewritings of classic British texts, I bridge fidelity criticism, the auteur theory, and contrapuntal readings of source texts with studies of political economy in order to position Hollywood cinema as a location of past and present imperialisms. The first chapter examines George Stevens’s Gunga Din, emphasizing how the film demonstrates a break in the American valorization of British culture. I then trace the global dominance of Hollywood film conventions through my discussion of Guy Maddin’s Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary. The next chapters engage with how three postcolonial adaptations address the legacies of the British Empire and Hollywood. Analyzing P. J. Hogan’s Peter Pan, Mira Nair’s Vanity Fair, and Shekhar Kapur’s The Four Feathers, the chapters discuss how the filmmakers maintain fidelity to source texts to imbue the narratives with the perspectives of their nations of origin. The final chapters discuss two reworkings of Oliver Twist—Tim Greene’s Boy Called Twist (2004) and Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (2008) to demonstrate the influence of positionality on adaptation as Hollywood International embarks on a globalized business model that controls representations of postcolonial nations.
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