“Tormented with Unsatisfied Desires”: Religious Fanaticism and Repressed Sexuality in a Cinematic Adaptation of Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland

ABSTRACT Eternity Box Films’ 2024 adaptation of Charles Brockden Brown’s 1798 gothic novel Wieland starring Christian Peterson, Mike Markoff, and Emily Lapisardi is the first cinematic treatment of this source text. In transforming Brown’s first-person epistolary narrative into a script following the established conventions of script structure, the screenwriters and production team strove to balance fidelity to the source text with changes and additions necessary for successful adaptation to the medium of film. The ambiguities and formal shortcomings of the novel offered both challenges and an increased scope for creativity to the filmmaker. Director Cody Knotts elected to focus on the themes of religious fanaticism and repressed sexuality in Brown’s work, offering a cinematic experience that invites viewers to question the veracity of their own sensory perceptions.