Adapting Transgressive Fiction to Film : Sharpening the Critical Edge with a Golden Age

This book examines the role that the film and publishing industries play in promoting narratives that preserve and consolidate power among society’s elite, drawing explicit focus on a betrayal of intention where the forces of postmodernism and late capitalism subsume the legitimacy of transgression in adaptations of transgressive fiction.

Analyzing the work of authors Bret Easton Ellis, Hubert Selby, Jr., Chuck Palahniuk and Irvine Welsh along with their film adaptations, Christopher Burlingame reveals the sociopolitical and cultural trends between 1996 and 2001 that enabled a Golden Age and saw the rise of a variety of film techniques employed to promote empathy for the characters, thereby re-affirming anti-patriarchal capitalist messaging. However, the failure to preserve this messaging in lieu of reflecting the status quo is evident in seemingly subtle changes to the plot and subplots as well as cinematic techniques that divert attention away from the source material''s original message.