31 - Screening the Australian Novel, 1971–2020

Summary

Critical analyses of Australian adaptations, which celebrate adaptation as a specific creative (and critical) practice, are relatively rare, but ‘literature to screen’ discussions of various sorts have been a common feature of Australian scholarship since the 1980s. Increasingly diverse adaptation choices made by Australian film and television industries since then reflect shifting assumptions about the status of literary texts in relation to screen culture, changing practices and platforms for funding, consumption and marketing, as well as an increased demand for adaptation as a category in its own right. This chapter starts from the premise that studying Australian adaptations teaches us something about narrative journeys, national culture and Australian studies in an era of wider on-demand access to productions old and new through commercial streaming services. The chapter provides a snapshot of select Australian adaptations over the last thirty years, identifying tendencies which raise important questions about the impact of adaptation in relation to the ways contemporary Australian culture is valued and assessed. It concludes that studying Australian adaptations in the streaming era affords a nuanced and challenging perspective of changing Australian self-definition, and the multiple cultural and educational uses to which Australian adaptations are put.