‘Flapping Ribbons of Shaped Space-Time’: Genre Mixing, Intertextuality and Metafiction in Fiction and Film Adaptation

Abstract

Within contemporary culture, books, films and other multimodal forms are continually intersecting with, adapting and mediating each other, resulting in a seemingly endless dialogical web of intertextuality. As I sug-gested in Chap. 1, literature for children exists at the intersection of a number of discourses that it appropriates and adapts, and is thus 'radically intertextual' (Stephens, 1992, 86). Likewise, film adaptations of children's texts are also radically intertextual and hybridic. As a multimodal means of communication, film itself is a very hybridic medium with a range of unique resources and genres at its disposal. Like children's books, films typically borrow and mix various genres, discourses and intertexts. Children's literature and film adaptations, moreover, are characterised by a prevalence of 'retold' stories, especially of traditional stories, which are an aspect of this complex web of intertextuality. Furthermore, there can be no expectation that children, young adults or adults will read or view texts in any particular order. Just as it is possible to talk about the 'influence of T.S. Eliot on Shakespeare' (David Lodge, Small World, 1984, 54), insofar as T.S. Eliot adapted Shakespeare in ways that have shaped and influenced how the Bard has been interpreted since the early twentieth century (see also McCaw, 2013, 81), it is also possible to talk about the influence of contemporary texts such as The Princess Bride (1973, 1987), Stardust (1998, 2007) and Inkheart (2003, 2008) on our perception of traditional stories and classic children's texts, as well as the intersecting influences of 124 these texts upon each other, creating what Rebecca-Anne Do Rozario calls 'intertextual disarray' (2009, 217). This chapter will explore the phenom-enon of radical intertextuality, especially genre mixing and narrative exper-imentation in literary and film texts for children and young adults that borrow from traditional stories and modern literary 'classics' for children. Focussing on books and films that push the boundaries of audience, genre and form, this chapter considers the limitations and possibilities of literary and film narratives, how literary experimentation is translated into film and, in turn, how film experimentation can impact on literary form. The chapter focusses on adaptations of William Goldman's The Princess Bride (1973, 1987, 1998, 2003, 2007), Cornelia Funke's Inkheart (2003, 2008) and Neil Gaiman's Stardust (1998, 1999, 2007). The phenomenon of retellings and reversions of traditional stories, fairy tale, folk tale and modern classics for children is a marked feature of con-temporary children's literature and film, though, to date, the genre of fairy-tale film has so far received the most critical attention in adaptation studies.