I found something I thought was very interesting in Hutcheon’s book that I would like to share with the class. It is located in Chapter 1, under a section entitled Adaptation as Product. In the last paragraph of this section Hutcheon recounts some history behind Sydney Lumet’s film Dog Day Afternoon. Based on an actual bank robbery in the early 1970s that was covered live on TV as well as a Life magazine article that spawned its screenplay, the successful and critically acclaimed movie went on to heavily influence how the actual bank robber, John Wojtowicz, remembered the event. In other words, Wojtowicz could only make reference to the film in order to describe what actually happened to him. Hutcheon concludes: …the film became, for him, as much the text to be adapted as was the lived event preserved in either his memory or the media coverage (18). I find this fascinating: that the visuals and narrative of a film can, in effect, replace an actual event it was based on, even for those actually there. I think this truly shows one of the most interesting (and frightening) capabilities of adaptation. How does/could it be used as an instrument of power? Can film resignify historical events for political, cultural, or economic motives? Obviously, this doesn’t happen in all situations since we constantly hear complaints about the historical accuracy of films based on true events—the most recent film that pops into my mind involved in this debate is The Hurt Locker which instigated some complaints from EOD veterans about how they were being depicted in it. But as again Hutcheon points out with Dog Day Afternoon, such resignfication can happen. What are the conditions, though, that allow it to happen? Are they discernable? Does Susan Orleans now remember her book through the lens of Charlie Kaufman’s adaptation of it? Just some food for thought.