The paper compares Welles’ film noir The Lady from Shanghai with the Sherwood King’s novel If I Die Before I Wake.
What, in your view, are the most significant changes from literary origin to the film version? Please quote specific scenes from the literary origin. For example, are there significant eliminations, re-ordering of narrative material, condensations, outright transformations, etc.? Why in your view are they significant? Do the changes alter the narrative? Do you think any of the changes have as their consequence that Wellesian concerns with power (including demagoguery, morality, gender relations, romance, the impact of the past on the present, natural world versus city, media manipulation, whiteness, the nature of investigation into a life, become foregrounded all the more?
What does rendering the narrative in cinematic form do to the original narrative meanings? Please cite specific scenes from the literary origin in support of your argument. Does making a film of the original narrative simply serve as illustration or does rendering it in filmic terms create something new? What do the specific techniques of cinema contribute or not in regards to the original narrative? Even when Welles doesn’t change narrative or dialogue from the original sources, does the very act of translating them to film enable him to make a film that looks like a Welles film and that deals with his usual concerns, both thematic and stylistic?
(I have uploaded 2 previous papers I already submitted for reference, one of which is a shot-by-shot analysis of The Lady from Shanghai and another of which is a comparative analysis of the film to Citizen Kane.)
