Weekend Warriors: DeLillo’s “The Uniforms,” Players , and Film-to-Page Reappearance

Abstract

This article argues that what DeLillo refers to as the “radical intent” attached to the early short story “The Uniforms” does not point to political radicalism but instead to a new way of thinking about adaptation. This aesthetically radical form of film-to-page adaptation does not privilege the source text, oftentimes subverting the source’s original purpose outright. This decentering of the cinematic source text also lets DeLillo expresses doubt about what film can accomplish politically, while emphasizing that the basic grammar of cinema can do things that literature cannot.