You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!
Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library
Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.
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![Adapting The Sound of Music from A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! [Video] (1:13)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/adapt-02-sound-of-music-1.jpeg)
Transcript:
So, how did I get interested in this? Well, look at that, when I was a kid this was a big book in the little kid’s library. The Trapp Family Singers, right, and everybody knows this book got turned into what?
Student: …the movie?
Welch: First, the play The Sound of Music. So, adaptations can come from books. They can come from theater. We’ll even see a cute little thing later on that’s like, ‘How did they do that?” So, first they took this true-life story. Often, obviously, an adaptation comes from a true-life story and they turned it into a theatrical event, a musical starring Mary Martin. Never got the chance to see that. I wasn’t born yet, but of course it turned into the movie that everybody in the world has seen a million times and you’ve gone to the Hollywood Bowl and you’ve done the sing-a-long and it’s become this popular culture thing. However, when I saw this movie as a kid, what struck me was — and everyone generally knows the story of The Sound of Music, right, I don’t have to go over it, but it’s the family that escapes when the Nazis take over Austria. At the end of the movie, their going to perform at a big cultural festival and it’s the night they escape instead and they’ve left their manager to say, “Here they are!” and they don’t show up and you know the Nazis are going to be very angry at this guy. So, I was very worried about they’re manager, Max Detweiler.
About this talk
Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
About Dr. Rosanne Welch
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.
Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”
Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016
Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.
Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog
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