On Wednesday, 20 July, it was announced that Kirsten Dunst is set to make her directorial debut with a new adaptation of Sylvia Plath's only finished novel, The Bell Jar, starring Dakota Fanning in the lead role as Esther Greenwood. Since then, the news has gone viral which is not surprising in the least.
In 2007, word spread that a film was in the works headlined by Julia Stiles and Tristine Skyler (screenplay), but unfortunately this project did not come to fruition. In fact, a blog post about the project was the second post ever here on the Sylvia Plath Info Blog. In May 2008, I posted a letter from Julia Stiles herself on this blog about the project.
We can and should lament that the Stiles/Skyler project never happened. I witnessed them conducting research at Smith College and provided information and resources when asked. So I know first-hand the lengths to which they went in creating a screenplay that would honor Plath herself and the work she did in writing The Bell Jar. And we must hope that Dunst's adaptation will display the same level of commitment -- and be as faithful as possible -- to Plath's excellent novel. I say this with the wretched liberties* taken by the writer(s) and director of 1979 film version of The Bell Jar in mind, as well as the trend recently toward restoration. What the Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath and Ariel: The Restored Edition, published in 2000 and 2004 respectively, did was to begin a shift in the accessibility of Plath's original texts, representing her powerful and authentic voice and vision as she intended. (The forthcoming Letters of Sylvia Plath that I edited with Karen V. Kukil, of course, was guided by this very same principle.) These are, of course, textual works which are very different to adaptations of those works into film and can have a different audience. But I do not see why we should not hope the same of Hollywood as we do London and New York publishers.
There is no better homage to Plath's The Bell Jar than to cinematically represent, as closely to the original as possible, the novel that millions of people around the world -- of all ages, backgrounds, native languages and much more -- have read, loved, re-read, related to, and recommended for more than half a century.
All links accessed 22 July 2016.
*These liberties resulted, in part, in a famous, or rather infamous, lawsuit.
In 2007, word spread that a film was in the works headlined by Julia Stiles and Tristine Skyler (screenplay), but unfortunately this project did not come to fruition. In fact, a blog post about the project was the second post ever here on the Sylvia Plath Info Blog. In May 2008, I posted a letter from Julia Stiles herself on this blog about the project.
We can and should lament that the Stiles/Skyler project never happened. I witnessed them conducting research at Smith College and provided information and resources when asked. So I know first-hand the lengths to which they went in creating a screenplay that would honor Plath herself and the work she did in writing The Bell Jar. And we must hope that Dunst's adaptation will display the same level of commitment -- and be as faithful as possible -- to Plath's excellent novel. I say this with the wretched liberties* taken by the writer(s) and director of 1979 film version of The Bell Jar in mind, as well as the trend recently toward restoration. What the Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath and Ariel: The Restored Edition, published in 2000 and 2004 respectively, did was to begin a shift in the accessibility of Plath's original texts, representing her powerful and authentic voice and vision as she intended. (The forthcoming Letters of Sylvia Plath that I edited with Karen V. Kukil, of course, was guided by this very same principle.) These are, of course, textual works which are very different to adaptations of those works into film and can have a different audience. But I do not see why we should not hope the same of Hollywood as we do London and New York publishers.
There is no better homage to Plath's The Bell Jar than to cinematically represent, as closely to the original as possible, the novel that millions of people around the world -- of all ages, backgrounds, native languages and much more -- have read, loved, re-read, related to, and recommended for more than half a century.
All links accessed 22 July 2016.
*These liberties resulted, in part, in a famous, or rather infamous, lawsuit.