Desarrollo de competencias en los principales países desarrollados

2.2.1 Adaptation

The term adaptation poses a number of challenges in the context of literature and film. Christa Albrech Crane and Dennis Cutchins write that “ ‘adaptation’ as the key term might be a misnomer altogether because it assumes that sameness forms its operative lens. However, as poststructural theory suggests, the making of texts as well as their reception are both destabilizing processes” (Arbrecht-Crane & Cutchins 2010, p.17). This is a valid point, but more important than the name that is used for the concept is its definition. Jorgen Bruhn attempts to do that: “Novel to film adaptation studies is the systematic study of the process of novels being turned into film, focusing on both the change of the content and form from novel to film and the changes being inferred on the originating text” (Bruhn 2014, p.73). This is a useful definition, that views the works on equal terms and points out the dual aspect of the interaction. Gordon E. Slethaug separates the agencies and texts that are involved in the process: “adaptation is a nexus for, and mosaic of, context, writing/directing subjects, originating texts and intertexts, discursive practices, and viewers/readers” (Slethaug 2014, p.5). Colin MacCabe views adaptation as a dynamic balance between forms: “Each adaptation allegorizes a conflict between film and novel as forms, strongly anchored as it is in Bakhtin’s theory of the novel, and responding as it does to something which is in the current intermedial air” (MacCabe 2011, p.23). Linda Hutcheon (2013), in her attempt at a definition of the term, makes the essential distinction between adaptation as product and as process. “Seen as a formal entity or product, an adaptation is an announced and extensive transposition of a particular work or works ... as a process of creation, the act of adaptation always involves both (re-)interpretation and then (re-)creation;” (Hutcheon 2013, p.8). Hutcheon uses the word announced in her definition, implying her view of addressing an adaptation as such, but also eliminating from the discussion cases of simple reference or allusion. On the other hand, she opens

the discussion by suggesting the possibility of an adaptation of multiple works. She protects her work from too much data but doesn’t insulate the discussion from the possibilities of an intertextual environment. This thesis takes a similar approach. The connection between text and film will remain in focus but the analysis will be kept open to osmotic influences. As for the distinction between product and process, it is incorporated into this study through separate tests of the theory, in a context of adaptation criticism (product) and adaptation practice (process).

Hutcheon introduces another level of analysis when she discusses the modes of engagement with the audience. The more complex mechanics of the showing and telling distinction are very useful in the context of adaptation, as they allow for a discussion of the transformation of impact of a given literary element. An element that is transferred from one mode to the other can have a different effect and serve a different function in the new work. For example it is completely different to read about a gruesome murder and to see it re-enacted. A verbal description of a musical piece has a radically different effect than its physical existence on a soundtrack. Anne Gjelsvik argues that “we tend to react differently towards different art forms due to a combination of medium characteristics and conventions. The emotional difference between ... reading and watching controversial representations calls for a phenomenological approach to the question of medium specificity” (Gjelsvik 2013, p.247). To ignore this fact is to turn adaptation into a mechanical process of transposition, one that is sure to strip the source of many layers of meaning and impact.

Dudley Andrew views adaptation as an intersection. “Perhaps better than other uses of the medium (documentary, experimental), adaptations show cinema dead center in the vast two-dimensional cultural economy. The vertical economy is ruled by past and future, measured by the ancestors and the gods from whom literary, religious, and moral values derive. The horizontal economy creates value in spreading this patrimony out as widely as possible” (Andrew 2011, p.35). This two

dimensional structure is eventually received by the culture in which it is created. The reception of any work by an audience cannot be taken out of the equation. Not only does it affect the aims of the adapter, it essentially constitutes the world in which the new work will live, a world that it will inform and be informed by. In the context of adaptation, this system becomes even more complicated as the work is not singular but hybrid, containing, in a sense, both times. An audience that is familiar with the source will have a very different reaction to the adaptation than one that is not. That also brings up questions regarding the adapter’s position, whose work may be different depending on whether they are addressing an initiated audience.

On a more abstract scale, the work of art can be seen as a platonic idea that inhabits different forms in order to achieve physical contact with the ever-changing world. It manifests physically only when it is culturally and historically situated. Thus, examining the situated form without taking into account the environment would be a gross oversimplification. Apocalypse Now (1979) transferred the narrative of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899) to the Vietnam war, highlighting the relevance of the older setting to the new one. It would be as unreasonable to separate the film from its time as it would be to separate it from its source. The Dark Knight Rises (2012), reportedly inspired by Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities (1859), achieved a very controversial modern relevance in the time of the Occupy Movement, even if the creator states that he did not intend the reference. There are even cases of films that depart from their source’s genre in order to accommodate a better connection with modern audiences. Eugene Burdick’s Failsafe (1962) became a comedy, Dr Strangelove (1964), in the hands of Stanley Kubrick. Jacquelyn Kilpatrick offers an example of this phenomenon in her essay “Keeping the Carcass in Motion: Adaptation and Transmutations of the National in The Last of the Mohicans” (2005), discussing an ambiguous book that contains ideological contradictions. Kilpatrick suggests that this ambiguity is the reason why it has conformed to very different adaptations. D.W. Griffith (1909) produced one with clearly racist

overtones. Maurice Tourneur and Clarence Brown (1920) went in completely the opposite direction. George B. Seitz’s version (1936) employs an “American Dream” approach, placing the good settlers in a wild-west setting. Michael Mann’s (1992) version is more politically sensitive but the Indian issue is still in the background, while the cross-race relationship is, as in all the other cases, doomed. Dudley Andrew argues this last point eloquently in his essay “Adaptation” (2000). “Adaptation is a peculiar form of discourse, but not an unthinkable one. Let us use it not to fight battles over the essence of the media or the inviolability of individual artworks. Let us use it as we use all cultural practices, to understand the world from which it comes and the one toward which it points ... We need to study the films themselves as acts of discourse” (Andrew 2000, p.37).

It is time then, to attempt a definition of adaptation as it will be used in this thesis. Adaptation as process is the complex interaction between a novel, a creative agency (adapter) and the filmic medium in a socio/historically situated environment. If either of the two connections is absent, the result will not be categorised as adaptation. If the first link (novel-adapter) is missing, it will be addressed as a loan. The films of Alfred Hitchcock might be placed in this group. If the second link (adapter-film) is severed, the product will be termed an illustration. This group would include dry, mechanical productions of canonical works. Socio/historical situation is not a choice, therefore there is no exception to the definition on that front. Consequently, adaptation as product is a film that can be seen as having originated through engagement with literary work(s). When this engagement is poor the product will be termed an allusion.

2.2.2 Definition of Fidelity and its Function in this Thesis

The next item that needs to be explored more rigorously is the notion of fidelity. It is imperative to examine what it means, how it might be pursued, which aspects of it are dismissed by its detractors and in what sense it can provide fertile ground in the study of adaptation. The first thing that needs

to be dismissed is the romantic as well as the religious context of the word. For the purposes of this study the term needs to be disassociated from any moral connotations. It could be argued that fidelity discourse reigned in the first years of adaptation practice due to a misplaced, almost religious respect for the classics. Words like “betrayal” seem to imply a romantic involvement with a piece of fiction. Words like “sacrilege” imply religious respect. Although metaphorically, these aspects of the term fidelity might carry meaning, there is always the danger of confusing a metaphor with a literal truth and that is when these notions become disruptive. A more clinical approach is necessary and it requires a revisiting of the term without emotional or moral prejudice.

The first question that arises when fidelity is discussed is its object. The first obvious compromise that needs to be made when thinking about adaptation is the impossibility to transfer the information of a text in its entirety. Thus, any notion of fidelity is a priori linked with choice and therefore subjectivity. The need to break down the source into its components arises. A selection is necessary, between those elements that will survive the transition and those that will not. An easy way to address this tricky question is to provide a declaration of which elements can be transferred as opposed to those that cannot. Seymour Chatman attempts to do just that in his essay “What Novels Can Do That Films Can’t (and Vice Versa)” (1980). This approach severs the Gordian knot and offers a clear practical path, but it could be argued that it is conceptually limited. For example, Chatman explains that “if it is the case that story-time necessarily continues to roll in films, and if description entails precisely the arrest of story-time, then it is reasonable to argue that films do not and cannot describe” (Chatman 1980, p.129). This type of point raises useful questions but if it is used in a prescriptive rather than a discursive manner, it is rather limiting. The process of adaptation through a specific list presupposes the existence of the complete list. The completion of the list is not a viable task, as it is partly based on subjective analyses of the general nature of a work of fiction. There can always be new ways to create categories according to different parameters.

Having said that, it could also be argued that the search for new items on the list, new components and therefore strategies of adaptation, is a productive enterprise.

The list of elements that have been nominated for transfer contains a small number of entrances. The main contender, as discussed in section 1.3.8, is narrative. While the choice to base the transition on the narrative as the driving force of the work is the sensible one, it can be misleading, mainly because the danger exists of making every other element an afterthought. This phenomenon immediately removes from consideration a great number of literary works, some of which will be “lost in translation” while others will not even be tackled. Most poetry is immediately dismissed from the field while formally complex novels (Beckett, Joyce, Woolf) can be addressed only in a very limited manner. Also, it cannot be ignored that the argument for narrative as common ground between the media is based on the assumption that film cannot operate without it. The delegation of the filmic art form to storytelling is arguably a cultural imposition. But even if narrative were the logical base for an adaptation, that would not clear a path to a universal solution. The majority of written fiction contains more narrative than could be accommodated by a reasonably long film. Television has provided a release valve on that front. Many long novels have worked much better on the small screen, given room to breathe by the augmented timeframe. Notable examples are Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s rendition of Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) as well as the BBC’s 1972 production of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1869).

The second most popular transferable element in the discussion of adaptation is style. This is more complicated territory as it introduces the question of form. Here, the common ground is less secure and compromises are introduced in the form of equivalences. If style is not dismissed as non- transferable, the radical differences of the media will need to be addressed here, much more than in the discussion of narrative. If the limits of the discourse are stretched, almost every element of

enunciation can be somehow represented in the new work. But a reasonable objection to this would be that the representation cannot be expected to serve the same purpose in the new environment. Again, the question of choice arises, coupled with that of method. The selection of stylistic choices to be transferred and the search for ways to implement them creates a very complex system. The easy solution of selecting the ones that are easier to accomplish is inadequate. Another system seems necessary, that will put those choices into perspective, help select the stylistic elements that are more crucial to the work and propose a rationale for their transfer or replacement with an element that serves their function in the new work.

The question of form brings with it its companion term, content. If enunciation is accepted as a structure that points to specific referents, it would appear that the identification and transference of those is adequate. This sounds reasonable but is practically void until the term content is specifically defined in this context and that is not an easy task. Content is a category that incorporates some of the others. Very often it is mistakenly identified with narrative, but it also evokes thematic and ideological elements. It is an abstract term that encompasses many layers of meaning. The narrative cannot be trusted to carry the underlying ideas, so again the need for another organising structure seems necessary. The microscopic examination of semiotic analysis does not appear to be adequate in this case.

The most metaphysical item that has been nominated for inclusion to the list of transferable aspects of a literary work is the so-called ‘spirit of the text’. It sounds like the most respectful solution but it is realistically impossible to define. It serves only as a metaphor and a rather morbid one at that, as it implies the death of the original. One way to make it more concrete is to identify it with authorial intent in the sense that the author is, or at least is responsible for, this ethereal entity. This assumption does not seem to make things much better in terms of analytical potential, but it does

structure the question in a more useful manner. If an agency with concrete goals and methods of achieving them is identified, it might be possible to obtain necessary information, like what is integral and what is functional in the text, and based on that information to establish the structure for the new work. The interrogation of this agency could provide credible answers to all the questions of choice posed earlier. And since the real author is not an accessible or reliable source of information, the next best thing would be the inference of the author through the work, the implied author.

There are ways to approach an adaptation from any of the aforementioned positions. One could opt to stay faithful to the narrative, try to convey the style, the ideas or one’s definition of the spirit of the text. But if the aim of an adaptation is considered in the sense that is suggested in this thesis, as optimisation of the engagement with the text, the outline of an answer starts to form. Neither of those elements, nor any combination of them, offers a complete solution for every literary work. From the perspective of this thesis, engagement with the text dictates a different choice of parameters for every individual work. The reading of the work can provide the map of its transposition, identifying the importance of every element and its place in the larger picture. Thus, one work will be read with priority on the narrative while another will be interpreted as a primarily stylistic experiment. One work will be easily transferable to another setting while another will not, again depending on the interpretation of the material by the adapter. A failure to recognise “The Figure in the Carpet” leaves no reliable way to choose the means of the transposition.

A consideration of a few points from the evolution of literature might serve to illuminate this point. Classic realist novels mostly operated through a strong authorial presence. When adapted, they are often dealt with solely on narrative terms, with the authorial commentary excised or used in brief voice-over interludes and the style being incorporated into the cultural transformation of a period

piece. Templates have been formulated that treat every work in the same manner, ignoring critically important differences. Modernist literature, diminishing the authority of the narrator’s voice (Kafka, Faulkner), seems more suited for filmic transposition. Fragmented narratives are also easily transferable and seem organically suited to a form based on editing (Burroughs). On the other hand, unreliable narration or internal discourse and stream of consciousness seem a priori incompatible with film (Woolf). Post modern literature, with the turn to reflexivity, collage and pastiche also seems to favour its transfer (Welsh). The dual track of the film medium even gives more opportunity for juxtaposition. But the foregrounding of diegesis as well as the experimentation with form will often not conform easily to cinematic language. This thesis holds that different genres of literature, but also different works within a genre, will require radically different adaptive techniques and also different critical strategies. A general recipe that covers all bases cannot be