Why Adapt‪?‬

Witnessing the immense number of adaptations--in all media--today, it would seem that many artists have chosen to take on what is in effect a dual responsibility: to adapt another's work and to make of it an autonomous creation. Giacomo Puccini was expected to do so in his operas; Marius Petitpas was lauded for doing so in his ballets. However, when filmmakers and their scriptwriters adapt literary works, in particular, a profoundly moralistic rhetoric often greets their endeavors. In Robert Stam's vivid terms: Given the ubiquity of adaptations, the time has clearly come to move away from this kind of evaluation, but there is another question that his description poses: why would anyone willingly enter this moralistic fray and agree to become an adapter? Should a prospective adapter be a masochist as well as having all the other qualities said to be ideal: humility, respect, compassion, wit, and a sharp razor?