Abstract
This essay examines one cinematic and one theatrical adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas fils novel La dame aux camélias (1848), which appeared in the years of the sexual revolution as camp was emerging as a more visible and pervasive representational trend. The first is Radley Metzger’s Camille 2000 (1969), a film that helped secure Metzger’s reputation as an auteur of “highbrow” erotica for mixed-sex audiences. The second is the Ridiculous Theatrical Company’s Camille (1973) by Charles Ludlam, who also starred as the title character. Individually and together these texts complicate the artificial binary between notions of adaptive faithfulness versus infidelity. Considering both as camp adaptations renders such a distinction inoperable and instead opens critical space for a queerer understanding of textual relationships to take hold.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Works Cited
Babuscio, Jack. “The Cinema of Camp (AKA Camp and the Gay Sensibility).” Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject: A Reader, edited by Fabio Cleto, U of Michigan P, 1999, pp. 117–135.
Barnes, Clive. “Stage: An Oddly Touching ‘Camille.’” New York Times, 14 May 1974, p. 31.
Bolich, G. G. Conversing on Gender. Psyche’s Press, 2007.
Bottoms, Stephen J. Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement. U of Michigan P, 2004.
Camille 2000. Directed by Radley Metzger. Spear Productions, 1969.
“Camille 2000.” Boxoffice, 4 Aug. 1969, p. a11.
“Camille 2000.” The Independent Film Journal, vol. 64, no. 4, 22 July 1969, p. 1061.
“Camille 2000.” Variety, 16 July 1969, p. 6.
Chauncey, George. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940. Basic Books, 1994.
Corliss, Richard. “Radley Metzger: Aristocrat of the Erotic.” Film Comment, vol. 9, no. 1, Jan./Feb. 1973, pp. 19–29.
Doty, Alexander. Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture. U of Minnesota P, 1993.
Dumas fils, Alexandre. La dame aux camélias. Translated by David Coward, Oxford UP, 2008.
Dumas, Jr., Alexander. Camille: A Play in Five Acts. Translated by Matilda Heron, 1856. Books for Libraries Press, 1971.
Gallagher, Stephen. “The Libertine.” Filmmaker Magazine, Summer 1997, www.filmmakermagazine.com/archives/issues/summer1997/metzger.php.
Gorfinkel, Elena. “Radley Metzger’s ‘Elegant Arousal’: Taste, Aesthetic Distinction and Sexploitation.” Underground U.S.A.: Filmmaking Beyond the Hollywood Canon, edited by Xavier Mendik and Steven Jay Schneider, Wallflower Press, 2002, pp. 26–39.
Gussow, Mel. “Ludlam Star of ‘Camille’ in Title Role.” New York Times, 4 May 1973, p. 24.
Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. Routledge, 2006.
Kaufman, David. Ridiculous! The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam. Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2002.
Klinger, Barbara. Melodrama and Meaning: History, Culture, and the Films of Douglas Sirk. Indiana UP, 1994.
Lester, Elenore. “The Holy Foolery of Charles Ludlam.” New York Times (Arts and Leisure section), 14 July 1974, pp. 1, 16.
Ludlam, Charles, and Steven Samuels, eds. Ridiculous Theatre: Scourge of Human Folly: The Essays and Opinions of Charles Ludlam. Theatre Communications Group, 1992.
Ludlam, Charles. Camille: A Travesty on La dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas Fils. Samuel French, 1989.
Meyer, Moe, ed. The Politics and Poetics of Camp. Routledge, 1994.
Murray, Simone. The Adaptation Industry: The Cultural Economy of Contemporary Literary Adaptation. Routledge, 2012.
Naremore, James, ed. Film Adaptation. Rutgers UP, 2000.
Newton, Esther. Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America. U of Chicago P, 1972.
Robertson, Pamela. Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna. Duke UP, 1996.
Sontag, Susan. “Notes on ‘Camp.’” Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject: A Reader, edited by Fabio Cleto, U of Michigan P, 1999, pp. 53–65.
Stam, Robert. “Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation.” Film Adaptation, edited by James Naremore, Rutgers UP, 2000, pp. 54–76.
Tyler, Parker. Screening the Sexes: Homosexuality in the Movies. Da Capo Press, 1993.
Weisman, Steven R. “Going Out Guide.” New York Times, 11 Sept. 1974, p. 38.
Wood, Robin. Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. Columbia UP, 1986.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hook, J. (2019). Willful Infidelities: Camping Camille. In: Demory, P. (eds) Queer/Adaptation. Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05306-2_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05306-2_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05305-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05306-2
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)