Three genres vs one artist: A case study of Denis Villeneuve's film adaptations

This dissertation seeks to bring a fresh air into the long-forgotten discussion of adaptation studies with a multidimensional lens from both literary and a cinematic point of views. Focusing on Denis Villeneuve who have successfully managed to adapt three different literary genres to the screen, the dissertation takes each adaptation alongside its source material and analyzes both with a concept that is very much prevelant in Villeneuve's filmography. Altough being related, the concepts are specific to each chapter with the works they were employed in. Evaluated in regards to their fidelity or betrayal to the source material up until recently, film adaptations require much deeper reading in which they are analyzed as unique artwork where the responsible artist expresses himself in the context of the work's creation. Therefore, the relationship between the film adaptation and the litereray source material should be regarded as a mutually beneficial way of communication, and not as a battle for superiority. The artist responsible fort he adaptation process has the key role at this point. As the focal topic of this dissertation, films of Denis Villeneuve as adaptations of three different literrary genres are examined through the motifs of the chronotope, the doppelganger, and repetition. The purposeful concentration over one artist enabled the thesis to achieve its aim of highlighting the phases gone through when it comes to different literary genres during the adaptation process of literature to cinema. Keywords: Chronotope, Doppelganger, Repetition, Literature and Cinema, Adaptation Studies, Intertextuality, Auteur Theory,