You Screwed up my Classic! Fidelity to Nostalgic Adaptations in Audiences' Perspective

Sammanfattning: This research focuses on fidelity in adaptation studies from the audience’s perspective since the audience usually has less power in contributing to the academic field. To see to what extent the transformation of fidelity in adaptation studies in terms of the scholars applies to the audiences, including amateurs and film critics. A case study on the Swedish story Utvandrarna (The Emigrants) was done to figure out the differences between audiences and scholars. The audiences’ reflections on the two films The Emigrants (1971) and The Emigrant (2021) were under comparison, in order to identify the development of fidelity and adaptation in the audiences eyes from the 1970s to the 2020s. Data was collected from famous Swedish Newspapers and websites, which are mostly used to discuss films and culture in Sweden. The film with the classic and historical original story in Swedish people’s eyes might shed light on other adaptations with different kinds of source texts as well. Fidelity in audiences’ perspective is no longer the standard to identify a good adaptation but a tool to reach a proper or good interpretation of the original story in the book and to put it on the screen as a new and credible story together with the creativity of the adapters. Although the audiences of The Emigrants cannot ignore fidelity and comparative analysis when they watch the film, their conclusions fall in the credibility of the new story on its own, instead of considering the film adaptation as a secondary accessory to the classic literature. Moreover, the proper interpretation raised by the audiences makes the difference between adaptation and other kinds of intertexts clear. A right and proper interpretation of the original story is a tool to justify an artwork’s identity as an adaptation. It is clear that for the audiences, fidelity is not an enemy of liberty or creativity and it is still indispensable when engaging in adaptations.