Samuel Beckett's Plays on Film and Television

This is the first comprehensive study of Nobel Laureate Samuel Beckett's innovative work for the screen. Samuel Beckett's Plays on Film and Television provides meticulous analysis of every play Beckett wrote, directed, or adapted for the screen. Herren studies Beckett's use of 'memory machines'-technological media for channeling personal, cultural, philosophical, and artistic ghosts from the past. Having conjured these ghosts, Beckett 'decomposes' them in order to recompose them for distinctly innovative use. Herren traces this countraditional approach to tradition as Beckett's signature style for film and television. The book concludes with a consideration of the Beckett on Film project, where Herren defends the vital need for creative freedom in future productions of Beckett's plays. With this publication, the film and television plays can now assume their rightful place alongside Beckett's remarkable fiction and stage plays, collectively constituting one of the most innovative artistic achievements of the twentieth century.

Graley Herren is Associate Professor of English at Xavier University, where he specializes in Modern Drama and Modern Irish Literature. He lives in Cincinnati with his wife Cathy and their son Dylan.