A room with many views: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s and Andrew Davies’ adapted screenplays for A Room with a View (1985, 2007)

Abstract This article attempts to demonstrate the influence of screenwriters in film adaptation and the benefits of including screenplays in adaptation studies. It examines the significance of authorial attribution, identifying adaptation issues and discovering omitted scenes and dialogue in the screenplays written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Andrew Davies for A Room with a View (1985 and 2007). These well-respected screenwriters are shown to steer the film adaptations and respond critically to E. M. Forster’s novel of the same name (1908) but also to leave their screenplays open to interpretation in an acceptance of film adaptation as a collaborative practice.