The discourse of power is barely concealed in such utterances it becomes clear enough if one translates them by analogy to adaptations whose dominant positions are accepted without question. Clive Hart, who served as "academic adviser to the James Joyce Estate" took it upon himself to "ensure that this film prove worthy of Joyce in general and that it should not, in particular, so misrepresent the tone and spirit of the story that Joyce's name could not creditably be associated with it." (Hart, 1988, 10-11). Steve Vineberg concludes that the film of The Dead stands as "proof that a man of talent, adapting the work of a man of genius, can create something unforgettable." (Vineberg, 1993, 307). James Naremore remarks that Joyce's "masterpiece of high modernism is turned into something more immediately accessible, like a well-made movie." (Naremor, 1991, 16).
1Discussing Kurosawa's adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth for Throne of Blood, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto observes that "fidelity is a misleading and unproductive notion because it establishes a hierarchical relation between original and adaptation… The discourse of adaptation is therefore less the discourse of aesthetics than that of power." (Yoshimoto, 2000, 258-9) Typical commentaries on Huston's The Dead – and I have selected as examples only critics who praise the movie – confirm Yoshimoto's assertion.
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