ADAPTING TRISTRAM SHANDY by Adria Young Submitted in ...

with his personal assistant, Jennie. 100 Because we expectto see the slimy, adulterous
Coogan of his public persona, we expect his flirtations with Jennie to result in an
awkward affair, despite that Coogan's partner, Jenny, and his son, are visiting him on-set,
and maybe almost because Jenny and son are there. This appeal to the real-ness of
Coogan's life-narrative, and the anticipated romantic conflict, along with the various
other snafus in Coogan's life, all speak to the biopic film conventions that are used to
create a dialogue with the original text. The narrative authority of Tristram is re-created
through the narrative authority of Coogan in the film; it is his story as much as Tristram’s
story that we watch. And the privileging of his story and hisexperience re-presents the
same control that Tristram holds over the novel. The Shandean psychological and social
individualism is remediated through the use of biopic and doc-drama film conventions.
Since the film takes place over the course of a few days, however, few of Coogan's
personal dilemmas contribute to the film's narrative development, or resolution, for that
matter; the action circulates around Coogan's insecure, competitive neurosis.
The ‘Movie’ Movie
The most hypermedial mode of the film is the film's reminder to itself (and the
audience) that it is an adaptation: the movie about a movie, the metamovie, the
“metadaptation” (Voigts-Virchow 137). For the first half of the film, Coogan tries to
convince the director and screenwriter to include Walter in the birth scenes (that is,
Coogan wants more screen-time). The screenwriter reminds him that, “it's the eighteenth
century, men just didn't do that,” and Coogan replies in frustration, “[Walter] talks to the
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