ABSTRACT
Perhaps the clearest personifications of the critic-as-adapter (CAA) can be seen in non-traditional critic–scholars like Catherine Grant, whose cutting-edge 'film essays' may be almost entirely comprised of fragments from the cinematic works she critiques – scenes mashed together, frames spliced or otherwise manipulated, projection speed changed. Viewing adaptation criticism as itself a form of adaptation – and thus of art – may profitably encourage the critic-as-adapter to consider his potential roles as he critically adapts a given text – written, filmed, or performed. In recognising that he is, among other things, a collaborator, creator, and experimenter alongside the artist–adapter whose work he critiques, the CAA may employ such tools as spontaneity, doubt, and humility to create new, intriguing critical forms. The CAA writes at the edge of understanding – always projecting herself and her expectations into the darkness, but always surprised by and enamoured of the irreducible texts before her.
