Translating the Twist: How complex narratives are impacted in the process of text-to-film adaptation

The concept of the puzzle film has received much attention in film studies scholarship over the last decade or so, with focus placed largely on a collection of films emerging in Hollywood during the 1990s, and which display certain complexities within their narration and/or overall structure. Films such as Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000), The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999), and Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999), have all earned their puzzle film status due to their ‘twist’ endings, complicated exposition which often leaves audiences with unanswered questions, and rich narratives which reward repeat viewings. Whilst there exist a number of contrasting approaches to unlocking the puzzle in such films, many scholars begin with the same foundations in place, acknowledging a tendency for filmmakers to consciously reject classical storytelling techniques, and adopting a binary approach which sees the complexities within such films as operating across two core levels: narrative and narration (Buckland, 2009). It is the latter half of this binary with which I shall be chiefly concerned. Although there has been substantial research into complex cases of narration, beginning with the Russian Formalists in approximately 1910 and elaborated upon by such scholars as David Bordwell, Wayne Booth, Seymour Chatman and Thomas Elsaesser, the concept of complex narratives in adaptation and the analysis of adaptation’s impact on such texts has scope for further discussion. This thesis seeks to explore how complex texts are impacted in the process of text-to-film adaptation. In order to achieve this, I will apply principles of literary stylistics in my analysis of three core texts – two which see their twist adapted on screen (despite their written narratives utilising contrasting methods of narration), and one for which a substantial twist is fabricated in the process of adaptation. Conducting an extended comparative analysis, my aim will be to explore and better understand; a) how narrative twists function; b) how a text may become more or less complicated in the process of text-to-film adaptation; and c) how the written version and the cinematic version of a text can each provide an entirely different experience for their audience.