Stanley Kubrick and the Art of Adaptation: Three Novels, Three Films »

Greg Jenkins is professor of English at Garret College in Maryland. He is the author of Night Game and . He has contributed more than 40 stories to literary journals and has had five plays produced.

Paring a novel into a two-hour film is an arduous task for even the best screenwriters and directors. Often the resulting movies are far removed from the novel, sometimes to the point of being unrecognizable. Stanley Kubrick s adaptations have consistently been among the best Hollywood has to offer.

Kubrick s film adaptations of three novels - Lolita, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket - are analyzed in this work. The primary focus is on the alterations in the characters and narrative structure, with additional attention to style, scope, pace, mood and meaning. Kubrick s adaptations simplify, impose a new visuality, reduce violence, and render the moral slant more conventional.