Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Osment, Sarah

Area of Concentration

English

Abstract

My role in this thesis is that of adapter/scholar. First, I examine the 1985 film Smooth Talk (dir. Joyce Chopra) based on Joyce Carol Oates’s short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” I begin by addressing the critical discourse surrounding Chopra’s film, providing a reading of Smooth Talk that directly rebuts allegations the film is either anti-feminist or imaginatively staid. I argue Smooth Talk uses allusions to the Bible, specifically to the parable of the Levite and His Concubine, to craft a critique of the patriarchal forces that structure the world of the film’s protagonist, the teenaged Connie Wyatt (Laura Dern). The second chapter of this thesis constitutes my own efforts at adapting Oates’s short story for film. It includes the screenplay for a short film titled Smooth, which is based on “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” as well as a brief concept trailer to convey my vision for the film. Finally, I spend the final third of this thesis exploring the political, social, and cinematic movements that influenced my own efforts at adaptation, namely: the Me Too movement, intersectional feminism, and contemporary cinema. I use B. Ruby Rich’s “cinema of urgency” as an organizing term for the urgent cultural forces that animated my script and the adaptation process more broadly.

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