Michael Winterbottom’s The Claim (2000) as a transnational and transcultural adaptation of The Mayor of Casterbridge

Abstract

In this article, we will be focusing on issues of transnational and transcultural film adaptation using as a case study a particular screen adaptation of the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy entitled The Claim (Michael Winterbottom 2000). The article aims to analyse the film in relation to these issues, taking into account notions of transcultural adaptation and transnational film productions, as well as mobility and migration in the context of a nineteenth-century film text. It is not only a text that relocates Hardy’s narrative into a new geographical/cultural dimension, but also it is itself a transnational production. Moreover, in the case of The Claim, there seems to be a clear understanding of processes of intercultural community construction that are particularly productive to look at. The article establishes a link between the particular transcultural perspective raised in this film and Michael Winterbottom’s oeuvre, taking also into account other adaptations of Hardy’s novels by the same director and the Western genre that underlies this film production.