Therefore an adaptation is a derivative that is not derivative - a work that is second without being secondary. It is its own palimpsestic thing. (Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, p. 9)
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| awesome dude |
This came to mind (not least because palimpsestic is currently one of my favourite words) last night whilst enjoying (really enjoying) the American
House of Cards, a show that thoroughly deserves the plaudits thrown at it. The original
House of Cards was, of course, a decidedly British creation from the early 1990s - its US cousin transplants the action and operates on a larger dramatic stage. But the fact of neither diminishes the other. I've started rewatching the British version and, despite the relative grandeur and scope of the newer adaptation, it still stands up.
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| jolly good show old chap |
The issue of adaptation also takes me back to my advent blogs last year. I note that on 13 December I chose the American version of
The Killing in preference to its Danish original. The next day I chose
The Bridge. Last week we completed watching the Anglo/French adaptation,
The Tunnel. Again, very good but it just falls short of the original because, despite the very sterling efforts of Clemence Poesy, the character of Saga Noren in
The Bridge is one of television's very greatest creations.
God bless Netflix by the way.
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