A psychoanalytic approach to screen adaptation that examines the role of deep-rooted desire evident in the persisting media practice of adaptation from literature to film.
The prevalence of adaptations in cinema – from literary texts – is striking. What does this lead us to think about adaptation? This open access book answers this question from a psychoanalytic perspective by exploring the psychic dynamics underlying screen adaptation as a practice, offering an intriguing window into the desire for adaptation beyond semiotic parameters and industrial factors.
Through a series of examples – from Hamlet and Hitchcock, to Kubrick’s The Shining, and Jonze’s Adaptation – the book theorizes film adaptations in relation to their originals. Drawing on the theories of Freud and Lacan, Hee-seung Irene Lee rigorously explains psychoanalytic concepts such as desire, the drive, the Oedipus complex, the uncanny, and anxiety, which are prevalent and remain useful in the vast field of cultural studies. As a result, readers can easily follow the book’s case studies of canonical film adaptations with interest.
At the same time, the author attempts to challenge, expand, and renew the usual definition of film adaptation. This fosters interdisciplinary dialogue between philosophical and psychoanalytic speculations on subjectivity and frames adaptation not merely as a specific mode of filmmaking but a universal, primordial task of every speaking being.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.
By:
Dr. Hee-seung Irene Lee (University of Auckland New Zealand)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic USA
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 214mm,
Width: 140mm,
Spine: 22mm
Weight: 340g
ISBN: 9798765138373
Series: Psychoanalytic Horizons
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 30 October 2025
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
Undergraduate
,
Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Acknowledgements Introduction: Screen Adaptation, a Symptom of Culture 1. The Real of a Text and the Task of the Adapter · Lost in Adaptation · The Task of the Adapter · From the Debris of the Tower of Babel · The Real of a Text 2. The Oedipus Complex in Film Adaptations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet · The Ghost of the Dead Author · Super-ego vs. Super Ego · Reading Hamlet through the Oedipus Complex · The Man Who Has Lost the Way of His Desire · Desire in Film Adaptations of Hamlet · Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet: The Oedipal Drama of Shadows · Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet: A Close-Up on the Oedipus Complex · Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet: The Dream of a Complete Hamlet · The Play’s the Thing 3. The Resistance to the Originals in Hitchcock’s Adaptations · Texts of Doubt: Uncanny, Unpleasure, Anxiety, and the Mother · The Uncanny at Home · Unpleasure and Anxiety · The Mother and the Gaze · The Function of the Negative · Hitchcock’s Rebecca without Rebecca · Adaptation in Reverse: The Birds 4. The Thing (das Ding) that Speaks of Itself in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining · Re-presentation of das Ding · The Play of the Thing · The objet petit a in the Shadow of das Ding · The Maze That Is a Monster 5. Traversing the Phantasy in Spike Jonze’s Adaptation · An Allegory of Adaptation · The Original Phantasy and Its Adaptations · Adaptation in vitro · The Traversal of the Phantasy Conclusion: Adaptation, the Metaphor for Subjectivity Bibliography Index
Hee-seung Irene Lee is Lecturer in School of Cultures, Languages, and Linguistics at University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her teaching and research areas include adaptation studies, art-house cinema, critical theory, psychoanalysis, and contemporary Korean popular culture.
