Audio/Film -- Databases
Film Databases
- Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window Academic Video Online delivers more than 67,000 titles spanning a range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. It includes documentaries, films, demonstrations, and other content types. Films in the Boston University Libraries catalog are licensed to Boston University for educational and research use only, for BU students, faculty, and staff.
- Kanopy This link opens in a new window Kanopy is a provider of documentaries, training films, and theatrical releases available as streaming video. Clips from the videos can be embedded in presentations or shown in class. Films in the Boston University Libraries catalog are licensed to Boston University for educational and research use only, for BU students, faculty, and staff.
Films available online:
- Gerwig, Greta, et al. Little Women. Swank Motion Pictures, Inc.], 2020. "Writer-director Greta Gerwig ... has crafted a 'Little women' that draws on both the classic novel and the writings of Louisa May Alcott, and unfolds as the author's alter ego, Jo March, reflects back and forth on her fictional life. In Gerwig's take, the beloved story of the March sisters--four young women each determined to live life on her own terms--is both timeless and timely."--
- Turnquist, Jan, et al. Orchard House : Home of Little Women. Public Broadcasting Service, 2018. Go inside the 350-year-old home in Concord, Massachusetts where Louisa May Alcott wrote and set Little Women in 1868. With a nurturing, talented family as owners and literary giants Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne as neighbors, Orchard House uniquely inspired Louisa May Alcott to write a book that has never been out of print and has been translated into over 50 languages.
At Mugar Library
- Films of Cukor, George. Little Women. MGM UA, 1933. Based on Louisa May Alcott's beloved novel. Tells the story of four sisters, Meg, Jo, Amy, and Beth, who grow up together in Massachusetts during the Civil War. We enter their world to share their joys and sorrows as they become the "little women" that their father proudly calls them. As the years pass, the girls learn that they can never recapture the happy, carefree experiences of their youth. Wild, tempestuous Jo (Katherine Hepburn) spurns the marriage proposal of Laurie (Douglas Montgomery), the rich boy next door, to pursue a writing career in New York, where she eventually meets and marries Professor Bhaer (Paul Lukas). Amy (Joan Bennett) falls in love with Laurie and becomes his wife, while Meg (Frances Dee), the eldest, marries Laurie's tutor. Frail and sickly Beth (Jean Parker), whom all adore, is fated to die prematurely. Cast also includes Edna Mae Oliver and Spring Byington. Directed by George Cukor. In black and white.
- Films of Armstrong, Gillian. Little Women (1994). TRISTAR, 1994. Director Gillian Armstrong's adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel is a story about the four March sisters, growing up in Civil War time New England. Winona Ryder stars as the headstrong Jo.
- The Belle of Amherst. KINO, 1976. Julie Harris repeats her Tony Award winning role as the eccentric nineteenth-century poet Emily Dickinson. Against a set depicting Dickinson's Amherst, Massachusetts home, Harris is in constant motion recollecting the poet's past from her work, her diaries and letters, and encountering the significant people in her life - friends, relatives and acquaintances.
- Luce, William., and Harris, Julie. Julie Harris in The Belle of Amherst a Play Based on the Life of Emily Dickinson. Credo, 1976. (Audio recording)Listen to the LP recording at Music Library (Mugar Library, 2nd floor)
Information about viewing films at Mugar Library
- Krasker Film/Video ServicesBU students may view films in the Krasker Film/Video Services previewing room at Mugar Library (basement level). The previewing room is equipped to screen all formats in the collection: DVD, Blu-ray, VHS, and Laser Disc.
Interviews - Toni Morrison
- Toni Morrison: Interview on NPR (Fresh Air): 4/20/15 "It's not profound regret," Morrison tells Fresh Air. "It's just a wiping up of tiny little messes that you didn't recognize as mess when they were going on." Originally broadcast April 20, 2015.
- Article- Young, John. “Toni Morrison, Oprah Winfrey, and Postmodern Popular Audiences.” African American Review, vol. 35, no. 2, 2001, pp. 181–204. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2903252. Accessed 17 Jan. 2020. Examines author Toni Morrison's changing status within publishing and reading circles, focusing on the impact of her appearances on Oprah Winfrey's television talk program. Argues that Morrison's use of popular media has worked to break down publishers' common assumptions about the nature of reading audiences, by erasing both the opposition between black and white readers and the hierarchy distinguishing serious fiction from popular books. Lauds this development as an important advance for black writers.
Articles and Books - Film Adaptation
Nineteenth-Century American Fiction on Screen by
The process of translating works of literature to the silver screen is a rich field of study for both students and scholars of literature and cinema. The fourteen essays collected in this 2007 volume provide a survey of the important films based on, or inspired by, nineteenth-century American fiction, from James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans to Owen Wister's The Virginian. Many of the major works of the American canon are included, including The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick and Sister Carrie. The starting point of each essay is the literary text itself, moving on to describe specific aspects of the adaptation process, including details of production and reception. Written in a lively and accessible style, the book includes production stills and full filmographies. Together with its companion volume on twentieth-century fiction, the volume offers a comprehensive account of the rich tradition of American literature on screen.
Location: Mugar Stacks PN1997.85 .N54 2007 and OnlinePublication Date: 2007
The Afterlife of Little Women by
The hit Broadway show of 1912; the lost film of 1919; Katharine Hepburn, as Jo, sliding down a banister in George Cukor's 1933 movie; Mark English's shimmering 1967 illustrations; Jo--this time played by Sutton Foster--belting "I'll be / astonishing" in the 2004 Broadway musical flop: these are only some of the markers of the afterlife of Little Women. Then there's the nineteenth-century child who wrote, "If you do not... make Laurie marry Beth, I will never read another of your books as long as I live." Not to mention Miss Manners, a Little Women devotee, who announced that the book taught her an important life lesson: "Although it's very nice to have two clean gloves, it's even more important to have a little ink on your fingers." In The Afterlife of Little Women, Beverly Lyon Clark, a leading authority on children's literature, explores these and other after-tremors, both popular and academic, as she maps the reception of Louisa May Alcott's timeless novel, first published in 1868. Clark divides her discussion into four historical periods. The first covers the novel's publication and massive popularity in the late nineteenth century. In the second era--the first three decades of the twentieth century--the novel becomes a nostalgic icon of the domesticity of a previous century, while losing status among the literary and scholarly elite. In its mid-century afterlife (1930-1960), Little Women reaches a low in terms of its critical reputation but remains a well-known piece of Americana within popular culture. The book concludes with a long chapter on Little Women's afterlife from the 1960s to the present--a period in which the reading of the book seems to decline, while scholarly attention expands dramatically and popular echoes continue to proliferate. Drawing on letters and library records as well as reviews, plays, operas, film and television adaptations, spinoff novels, translations, Alcott biographies, and illustrations, Clark demonstrates how the novel resonates with both conservative family values and progressive feminist ones. She grounds her story in criticism of children's literature, book history, cultural studies, feminist criticism, and adaptation studies. Written in an accessible narrative style, The Afterlife of Little Women speaks to scholars, librarians, and devoted Alcott fans.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2015
A Companion to Literature, Film, and Adaptation by
This is a comprehensive collection of original essays that explorethe aesthetics, economics, and mechanics of movie adaptation, fromthe days of silent cinema to contemporary franchise phenomena.Featuring a range of theoretical approaches, and chapters on thehistorical, ideological and economic aspects of adaptation, thevolume reflects today?s acceptance of intertextuality as avital and progressive cultural force. Incorporates new research in adaptation studies Features a chapter on the Harry Potter franchise, as well asother contemporary perspectives Showcases work by leading Shakespeare adaptation scholars Explores fascinating topics such as ?unfilmable?texts Includes detailed considerations of Ian McEwan?sAtonement and Conrad?s Heart of Darkness
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2012
