ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses a significant element in the adaptation of narrative content from one medium to another, namely the reproduction of subjective thought processes, along with the conventions that have developed around it, and why. It addresses how adaptation–in this instance the adaptation of Charles Dickens's narrative properties–is necessarily intertwined with and embedded in uses and displays of technology from page to lantern to screen. The chapter investigates the relationship between adaptation and technology, not only with regards to specific adaptations, but also with regards to how the nature of available technology has shaped the process of adapting and portraying thought in the media. In Dickens Before Sound, the BFI has produced a film adaptation of The Story of Gabriel Grub, or the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton from painted glass slides, thereby introducing motion into this magic lantern show which would have been presented with two projectors and fade outs.