AustLit
Adaptation of
For Love Alone
1944
single work
novel
Issue Details:
First known date:
1986...
1986
For Love Alone
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Set in Australia in the 1930s, For Love Alone is the story of Teresa, a poor young woman in love with a dashing but arrogant teacher who preaches free love and watered-down socialist precepts. She follows him to England, meeting a gentle banker en route. The film follows her relationships as they are transformed in England.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Cleaning up the Queer : Sex, Love and Ideology in Stephen Wallace's For Love Alone
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , 6 April vol. 5 no. 1 2011; (p. 59-70) 'This article positions Stephen Wallace's adaptation (1986) of Christina Stead's novel, For Love Alone (1944), as a conservative revision of a literary text whose radical engagement with queer desires challenged heteronormative values and institutions. Drawing upon production files, personal correspondence with the film-maker, literary and film criticism and textual analysis, the article quantifies the ideological work of the adaptation. It identifies Stead's treatment of non-monogamous heterosexual relationships, fantasies rooted alternative sexual practices and homoerotic triangulations as the basis for the novel's queer space. It then shows how the film imposed a heteronormative sensibility upon the narrative by eliminating references to any form of same-sex desire, framing the heroine's journey as a marriage quest that ignored other aspects of personal and professional development and confirming her abandonment of free love in favour of wedded bliss. The article traces this eradication of queer space to factors in the adaptation process, logistical issues that arose during production and promotional discourses that encouraged it to be received as a love story. By reflecting on the significance of the film's failure to register the novel's queer resonances, its active promotion of monogamous marriage and the circumstances that produced those creative decisions, the article sheds light on the ideological dynamics of both the film and the creative process as a whole.' (Author's abstract)
-
Cleaning up the Queer : Sex, Love and Ideology in Stephen Wallace's For Love Alone
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , 6 April vol. 5 no. 1 2011; (p. 59-70) 'This article positions Stephen Wallace's adaptation (1986) of Christina Stead's novel, For Love Alone (1944), as a conservative revision of a literary text whose radical engagement with queer desires challenged heteronormative values and institutions. Drawing upon production files, personal correspondence with the film-maker, literary and film criticism and textual analysis, the article quantifies the ideological work of the adaptation. It identifies Stead's treatment of non-monogamous heterosexual relationships, fantasies rooted alternative sexual practices and homoerotic triangulations as the basis for the novel's queer space. It then shows how the film imposed a heteronormative sensibility upon the narrative by eliminating references to any form of same-sex desire, framing the heroine's journey as a marriage quest that ignored other aspects of personal and professional development and confirming her abandonment of free love in favour of wedded bliss. The article traces this eradication of queer space to factors in the adaptation process, logistical issues that arose during production and promotional discourses that encouraged it to be received as a love story. By reflecting on the significance of the film's failure to register the novel's queer resonances, its active promotion of monogamous marriage and the circumstances that produced those creative decisions, the article sheds light on the ideological dynamics of both the film and the creative process as a whole.' (Author's abstract)
Last amended 12 Oct 2012 15:59:30
Settings:
-
London,
cEngland,ccUnited Kingdom (UK),cWestern Europe, Europe,
- 1930s
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