The_Natural

The Natural Borrowing from Bernard Malamud: Levinson’s version of The Natural The film theorist Dudley Andrew in his essay, “Adaptation” writes, “If we confine ourselves to those cases where the adaptation process is foregrounded-that is, where the original is held up as a worthy source or goal-there are still several possible modes of relation between film and the written text. These modes, according to Andrew, can be reduced to three: borrowing, intersection, and fidelity” (29). In this essay I hope to show that Levinson’s adaptation of Malamud’s novel fits snugly into Dudley Andrew’s definition of borrowing. Andrew in his essay defines borrowing as, “The artist employs, more or less extensively the material, idea, or form of an earlier, generally successful text” (28). Andrew goes on to say that, “To study this mode of adaptation the analyst needs to probe the source of power in the original by examining the use made of it in adaptation. Here the main concern is the generality of the original, its potential for wide and varied appeal-in short, its existence as a continuing form or archetype in culture. film, levinson, novel, adaptation, material, form, natural, malamud’s, borrowing, andrew, version, roy, redemption, original, levinson’s, hobbs, borrows, baseball, archetype, allows, text, status, something, out, himself, hero, existence, essay, dudley, culture, continuing, wide, varied, three, theme