Patricia Highsmith on Screen (2018)

An essay collection on the cinematic legacy of American author Patricia Highsmith, co-edited by Wieland Schwanebeck and Douglas McFarland, is out with Palgrave Macmillan. It is the first full-length study to focus on the various film adaptations of Highsmith’s novels, which have been a popular source for adaptation since Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1952). The collection of essay examines films such as The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Two Faces of January, and Carol. Particular attention is paid to queer subtexts, mythological underpinnings, philosophical questioning, contrasting media environments and formal conventions in diverse generic contexts. Produced over the space of seventy years, these adaptations reflect broad cultural and material shifts in film production and critical approaches to film studies.  The book is thus not only of interest to Highsmith admirers, but to anyone interested in adaptation and transatlantic film history.

It includes chapters by Christopher Breu, David Greven, Thomas Leitch, Alison McKee, Robert Miklitsch, Bran Nicol, Murray Pomerance, and Klara S. Szlezák, as well as interviews with renowned Highsmith adaptors like Hossein Amini, Hans W. Geissendörfer, Phyllis Nagy, and Wim Wenders.

Check out the publisher's website for more detailed information and a reading sample.

Reviews

• "Patricia Highsmith on Screen endeavours—successfully, in my view—to extricate its subject from Hitchcock’s formidable shadow." (Gary Bettinson in The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, 2020)
• "This comprehensive study of Highsmith adaptations covers work from the entirety of the author’s career and includes interviews with film directors (among them Wim Wenders) as well as investigating Highsmith adaptations in relation to dualisms, queer cinema, and noir." (Peter Lewis in Adaptation, 2019)