What does Robert Stam mean when he describes a film adaptation as an act of 'intertextual dialogism' inspired by Mikhail Bakhtin?
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Correct answer: The film converses with its source novel and a web of films, genres, history, and culture
Stam rejects the binary model of 'book vs. movie' by arguing that no text exists in a vacuum. Drawing on Bakhtin's dialogism, he suggests an adaptation enters an ongoing cultural conversation. A film adaptation of 'Frankenstein,' for instance, is in dialogue with Mary Shelley's novel, but also with pop-culture myths, horror film conventions, scientific debates, and earlier cinematic versions, making it a crossroads of multiple cultural texts.
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