ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the pull of the future in relation to Emile Zola's La Bete humaine. Focusing on the adaptations of this novel made by Jean Renoir and Fritz Lang, it explores the way in which Zola's text has been adapted and its adaptation re-adapted in the course of the twentieth century. The chapter also explores the concepts of authorship are explored in criminal terms at the level of characterization in La Bete humaine. Zola's novel is built around a quest for the author of a crime. Zola's 1890 novel about the author of a crime was adapted by the auteur Jean Renoir into a film of the same name, released in 1938. Renoir explores the troubled nature of Jacques's criminal authorship as he interprets and adapts Zola's notions of heredity. Whilst Zola's authorial ghost hovers over this adaptation of La Bete humaine, Renoir's presence as the author of this film is nonetheless discernible.
