The Last King of Scotland and the Politics of Adaptation

Kevin Macdonald’s film takes on the challenge of adapting a novel, a man’s life, and a traumatic period in Ugandan history. It also attempts to marry fact with fiction, authenticity with narrative thrill. This article argues that the film buckles under the weight of its aspirations, not least because, in the parlance of old-fashioned approaches to adaptation, it perpetrates betrayal—against the novel in jettisoning the moral perspective enabled by its frame narrative, and against the history of Uganda, both in eliding the magnitude of the country’s suffering under Idi Amin and in the deliberate fictionalizing of its history in the service of generic sensationalism. While studies in adaptation may try to move beyond the fidelity debate, a film such as this throws into relief the ethical and political choices involved in adaptation

Adaptation (eye · Aesthetics · Art · Betrayal · Fidelity · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Politics · Sensationalism · Sociology · Telecommunications · Visual arts · Engineering · History · Law · Psychology · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism

• Les forces armées africaines au cinéma

  Thomas Richard•Afrique contemporaine•2018

  Add to list

• Metahistory

  Hayden White•Metahistory•1973

  Add to list