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To sup on horrors: Christopher Hampton's film versin of Joseph Conrad's Secret Agent

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From: Literature/Film Quarterly
Date: 19990101
Author:Phillips, Gene D

In Joseph Conrad's famed preface to his 1897 novella "The Nigger of the Narcissus" he wrote, "My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, . before all, to make you see" (xiv). In 1913 D.W. Griffith said, "The task I am trying to achieve is above all to make you see" (McFarlane 4). It is significant to notice how the statements by Conrad the novelist and Griffith the filmmaker seem to echo one another. Conrad stated that his task as a novelist was "to make you see." Griffith likewise affirmed that his task as a filmmaker was "to make you see" (McFarlane 3,4). At ...

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