The Power of Irony

The 1970s saw a mass exodus of younger, artistically ambitious directors from moviemaking for the big screen into TV. Among the beneficiaries of the new medium was Igor Maslennikov, who had struggled to establish himself as more than “promising.” Maslennikov’s TV adaptations of Sherlock Holmes rapidly made him one of the most famous filmmakers in the USSR. The main subject of this chapter, however, is an adaptation for “quality TV” of a different kind, The Queen of Spades, by Russia’s most famous writer, Alexander Pushkin. Where Maslennikov’s Conan Doyle adaptations were studiedly casual (The Hound of the Baskervilles is an exercise in playful eccentricity rather than a plunge into Victorian Gothic), his reworking of Pushkin went precisely in the other direction. This “hyperauthentic” interpretation of the Russian author sought to retain “every last comma” in the original, right down to scene-setting commentaries presented by an on-screen narrator. As this chapter argues, had it not been for the exceptionally vexed history of attempts to film The Queen of Spades (Maslennikov was the fourth director selected to make the movie), his “hyperauthentic” approach might have proved more controversial. Whichever way, the adaptation more closely resembles late modernist films of the era such as Eric Rohmer’s The Marquise of O than the conventional literary adaptations of the later Soviet era, which came from a tradition where reconstructing the source text was the accepted norm.

Regulated Immediacy

This chapter explores the work of Viktor Sokolov, a much-admired director at Lenfilm whose extensive work in genre films (production dramas, sports films, literary adaptations) made him relatively invisible to the critical establishment of his own day and later. Sokolov’s combination of emotional surges and a precise and critical eye for cinematic patterning made him difficult to classify at any time, and never more so than in A Day of Sunshine and Rain (1967), an unusual children’s film that explores the unexpected and fragile friendship of two young boys who have skipped school, but also the nature and purpose of art.

O cortiço em três versões: adaptações literárias em sala de aula

O artigo resulta de uma dissertação de mestrado que investigou, em uma escola pública de Ensino Fundamental e Médio do município de Guarapari (ES), as relações entre livro, leitor e leitura por meio das contribuições teóricas e metodológicas da Nova História Cultural. A pesquisa foi desenvolvida a partir de três versões da obra O cortiço, de Aluísio Azevedo: adaptação por Fabio Pinto da coleção “É só o começo” (2009); adaptação com roteiro de Ivan Jaf e arte de Rodrigo Rosa em história em quadrinhos (2010) distribuída pelo PNBE; e versão integral (2014 [1890]). A primeira parte do trabalho - bibliográfica-documental - investigou livro e leitura no contexto brasileiro, educação literária no Brasil e procurou saber como se dá a leitura na escola e nos documentos oficiais. Na segunda parte, foi desenvolvido um estudo de caso com grupo focal em que, com alunos pré-selecionados, objetivou-se entender as diferenças de apropriação entre texto integral e suas adaptações. A investigação tornou possível traçar um perfil de leitor de leitura literária da escola campo e chegou à conclusão de que algumas adaptações podem ser instrumentos de mediação de leitura em sala de aula. Os principais autores que nortearam o estudo foram: Chartier (2002, 2013), Dalvi (2013), Zilberman (1999) e Perrotti (1999).Palavras-chave: Adaptações literárias. Leitura literária. O Cortiço.“O cortiço” in three versions: literary adaptations in a classroomABSTRACTThe article results from a master’s dissertation that investigated, in a public elementary and high school in the city of Guarapari (ES), the relationships between book, reader and reading through the theoretical and methodological contributions of the New Cultural History. The research was developed from three versions of the work O cortiço, by Aluísio Azevedo: adaptation by Fabio Pinto of the collection “It’s just the beginning” (2009); adaptation with screenplay by Ivan Jaf and art by Rodrigo Rosa in comic strip (2010) distributed by PNBE; and full version (2014 [1890]). The first part of the work - bibliographic and documentary - investigated books and reading in the Brazilian context, literary education in Brazil and sought to know how reading takes place at school and in official documents. In the second part, a case study was developed with a focus group in which, based on pre-selected students, the aim was to understand the differences in ownership between the full text and its adaptations. The investigation made it possible to draw a profile of literary reading readers from the school and came to the conclusion that some adaptations can be instruments of reading mediation in the classroom. The main authors who guided the study were: Chartier (2002, 2013), Dalvi (2013), Zilberman (1999) and Perrotti (1999).Keywords: Classic literary adaptations. Literary readings. “O Cortiço”.O cortiço en tres versiones: adaptaciones literarias en el aulaRESUMENEl artículo resulta de una tesis magistral que investigó en una escuela pública de Enseñanza Fundamental y Media de la municipalidad de Guarapari (ES), las relaciones entre libro, lector y lectura por medio de los aportes teóricos y metodológicos de la Nueva Historia Cultural. La investigación fue desarrollada a partir de tres versiones de la obra O Cortiço, de Aluísio Azevedo: adaptación por Fábio Pinto de la colección “É só o começo” (2009); adaptación con guión de Ivan Jaf y arte de Rodrigo Rosa en historietas (2010) distribuida por el PNBE; y la versión integral (2014 [1890]). La primera parte del trabajo – bibliográfica – documental – investigó libro y lectura en el contexto brasileño, educación literaria en Brasil y buscó saber cómo se establece la lectura en la escuela y en los documentos oficiales. En la segunda parte, fue desarrollado un estudio de caso con grupo focal en que, con alumnos preseleccionados, se objetivó entender las diferencias de apropiación entre texto integral y sus adaptaciones. La investigación posibilitó esbozar un perfil de lector de lectura literaria de la escuela campo y llegó a la conclusión de que algunas adaptaciones pueden ser instrumentos de mediación de lectura en el aula. Los principales autores que orientaron el estudio fueron: Chartier (2002, 2013), Dalvi (2013), Zilberman (1999) y Perrotti (1999).Palabras clave: Adaptaciones literarias. Lectura literaria. O Cortiço.

Negotiating autobiographical truth: Embodying sensation in the narrative screenplay

This article examines how screenwriting adaptations of written material speak of levels of truth-telling within various autobiographical texts. These include literary adaptations by Marguerite Duras: Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) and The North China Lover (1992), and the autobiographical filmmaking of Maya Deren: Meshes of the Afternoon (1946) and The Very Eye of Night (1958). I argue that descriptions of tactile sensation necessarily remain codified in screenplays, their connotations left hanging even when the filmmaking process often falls short of depicting final truth. What remains is an unresolved problematic perception standing in for an experience. Our own experience of cinema can invariably be one wherein neither words nor images appear, or reappear, as to how they felt for the screenwriter. Is this a wholly negative situation, or merely the continuation of mediation, remediation and the contingent transposition of one medium into another? Drawing on examples from the screenwriting and/or filmmaking of Duras and Deren, I discuss why the screenwriter always writes in personal terms (because the personal is inescapable), and that this is a personal experience of imagination through the writing. Moreover, I test the idea that screenwriting only emerges in a form that we can recognize as truth, through its depictions of tactility and its representations of sensation.

Religion

Bazin argues that miracles are inexplicable events that test science. Wary of the supernatural and transcendence, he does not approve of Pius XII’s standards of sainthood. All religions are fair game for social anthropology, even if they address mankind’s spiritual dimension. Irrational belief in God is necessary to maintain hope in eternal justice, since human laws are imperfect. Cinema’s illusionism turns irrational belief into a spiritual sensibility even for those who do not believe in any religion. Opposed to the dogmatic tendencies of any religion, Bazin argues that, in comparison to Jean Delannoy’s literary adaptations, Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest (1951) stands out as an avant-garde film that is a masterpiece. This film explores Blaise Pascal’s notion of the Hidden God, by remapping the senses in such a way as to mark a new stage in the evolution of cinematic language. It is an example of pure cinema, comparable to Vittorio De Sica’s very different Bicycle Thieves (1948).

Boundaries Unbound: Jude, Adaptation and Assemblages

Most commercial films are hybrid, at the boundaries of two or more genres. Literary adaptations, furthermore, seemingly straddle two media and their study crosses disciplines. Analysis here of Jude (Winterbottom, 1996) examines paratextual and peritextual features to account for its emergence and subsequent fortunes. These involve not only directorial vision, conscious conflation of filmmaking styles, and ‘fidelity’ or otherwise to its ‘source’, but conjunction of particular taste formations, conflicting commercial strategies, contrasting audiences and modes of address, and yoking together of institutional models, each with its distinctive ethos, of financing, production, and distribution. Like any text, Jude is a contingent product of time and place. Its disappointing takings, despite critical praise and enduring admiration, are, this paper contends, explained by its positioning at the boundary of two markets; months earlier this would have been refreshing and radical, but in the brief period between conception and release its commercial context altered irrevocably.

Literary Adaptations in Comics andGraphic Novels

In this chapter, the topic of literary adaptation in comics format is tackled from three points of view: first, a historical one (an overview of the adaptation policy in the various periods one can distinguish in the comics/graphic-novel history); second, a semiotic one (a look at the differences between two major types of adaptation, the storytelling adaptation, which only adapts the plot of the literary text, and the medium-specific adaptation, which tries to explore the comics features that are not only added to the story but that often dramatically change and literally reframe the initial story); and third, a properly literary one (an exploration of why comics can be seen as literature and why, in spite of this natural relationship, there exists a certain resistance to the idea as well as the practice of literary adaptation in comics).