Forster into film

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to establish whether or not Forster's main themes and preoccupations are rendered through film language in the film adaptations of five of his novels - Where Angels Fear To Tread, A Room with a View, Howards End, Maurice and A Passage to India. Chapter One discusses the differences and the common ground shared between the two artistic forms of literature and film. The processes involved in the adaptation of a novel into a film are also considered. This chapter then identifies Forster's main concerns and ends by establishing the gender-based, psychoanalytical, post-colonial critical approach taken in the thesis. Chapters Two, Three and Four trace the path Forster's protagonists go through. The cage-like society based on very rigid attitudes towards race, class, gender and sexual orientation stifle the individual, hindering the development of human relationships and the emergence of the real self hidden beneath the social self. By going through a moment of heightened experience, these characters are liberated from the restraints and inhibitions of society and convention. They re-evaluate life and achieve a new self-awareness. Each chapter, entitled Cages, Visionary Moments and Coming To Life, corresponds to one of the stages the protagonists go through. The chapters focus on key moments in the novels and analyse the corresponding film sequences to establish the extent to which the film adaptations reflect the novels. The Conclusion points out those aspects of the novels which appear to be least developed in the film versions.