Translation and Adaptation studies, Appunti di Lingua Inglese

Scarica Translation and Adaptation studies e più Appunti in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! Translation and Adaptation Behind each narration there is an interpretation and adaptation. Jacobson distinguishes 6 communication functions, associated with a dimension or factor of the communication process: 1. Referential – contextual information 2. Aesthetic/poetic – auto-reflection 3. Emotive – self-expression 4. Conative – vocative or imperative addressing of receiver 5. Phatic – checking channel working 6. Metalingual – checking code working On Linguistic Aspects of Translation Jacobson states that the meaning of a word is a linguistic phenomenon:  Intralingual translation – the changes take place within the same language. A verbal sign (word) belonging to a particular language is replaced by another sign (word) belonging to the same language.  Interlingual translation – can be seen as replacing a verbal sign with another sign but belonging to a different language (also called translation proper).  Intersemiotic translation (transmutation) – the translator concentrates more on the information that is to be delivered rather than paying attention to the verbal signs. It is the actual translation from a semiotic system (book) into another (film). History of film adaptation Georges Méliès’s 1902 original science-fiction feature A Trip to the Moon was based loosely on two popular novels of the time: Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon and H. G. Wells’s The First Men inthe Moon. The first of many adaptations of the Brothers Grimm tale Snow White was released in 1902, while the earliest surviving copy is the 1916 version. 1903 saw the release of Alice in Wonderland directed, by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, the first movie adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s children’s book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Sergei Eisenstein pointed out in his landmark essay on Charles Dickens (Dickens, Griffith and The Film Today, 1944), films most readily adapt novels with externalities and physical description: they fare poorly when they attempt the Modern novel and any fiction that has internal monologue or, worse, stream of consciousness. When source novels have exposition or digressions from the author’s own voice, a film adaptation may create a commenting, chorus-like character to provide what could not be filmed otherwise. Thus, in the adaptation of John Fowles’s neo-Victorian novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the director created a contemporary in a romance with a woman to offer up the ironic and scholarly voice that Fowles provided in the novel. Change in adaptation is essential and unavoidable, mandated both by the constraints of time and medium, but how much do we need to change is always a balance. Some film theorists have argued that a director should be entirely unconcerned with the source, as a novel is a novel, while a film is a film, and the two works of art must be seen as separate entities. Since a transcription of a novel into a film is impossible, even holding up a goal of accuracy is absurd. Other argue that a film adaptation changes the subjet to fit it (literally, to adapt), and the film must be accurate to either the effece (aesthetics) of a novel, or the theme of the novel, or the message of the novel and that the filmmaker must introduce changes where necessary to fit the demands of time and to maximize faithfulness along one of these axes. Adaptation studies Adaptation can’t be understood only by using novels and films. Victorians had the habit of adapt everything, and in just about every possible direction: the stories of poems, novels, plays, operas, paintings, songs, dances, and so on… were constantly being adapted from one medium to another and then back again. Postmoderns (us) have clearly inherited the same habit, but we have even more materials at our disposal. Is the original superior to the adapted? Original = hypotext or source text Adapted text = hypertext or target text Any text is an hypertext, grafting itself onto a hypotext, an earlier text it imitates or transforms. Questions of authority The alleged superiority of the source text is a wrongly-stated assertion, since we are dealing with two different textual realities: the notions of authority and equivalence. Reading backwards We may actually read or see the so-called original after we have experienced their adaption, multiple versions exists laterally, not vertically. In the case of Eyes Wide Shut by Stanley Kubrick (dated 1999), an adaptation of Traumnovelle by Arthur Schnitzler (dated 1924), or Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, with many filmgoers who did not know at first that it was the source of inspiration for Apocalypse Now. Only after having discovered it they could both re-watch the movie and eventually read the book with a new “critical”, ideological and readerly perspective. Iconophobia and Logophilia Stamm refers to the supposed hierarchy of the original, which is derived from the romantic idea of the author as the superior creator and genius, who cannot be replicated. He includes the iconophobia (a suspicion of the visual) as a consequence of logophilia (love of the word as sacred, typical of the culture rooted in the sacred word of the religions of the book). For Stam, iconophobia is: «[…] a deeply rooted cultural prejudice against the visual art, traceable not only to the Judaic-Muslim-Protestant prohibition of graven images, but also the platonic and neoplatonic depreciation of the world phenomenal appearence». Adaptation vs appropriation Julie Sanders, adaptation is «a specific process involving the transition from one genre to another: novels to film; drama into musical; the dramatization of prose narrative and prose fiction; or the inverse ovement of making drama into prose narrative». In this respect, Sander’s notion of adaptation roughly corresponds to Jacobson’s idea of intersemiotic translation. As for appropriation, as the name suggests, this practice seems to suggest a sort of “vampiric” assimilation of some elements derived from other texts that are assimilated with a specific aim. As Sanders writes: «Appropriation frequently affects a more decisive journey away from the informing source into a wholly new cultural product and domain». Neo-Victorian novels as appropriations An interesting example of appropriation is represented by the so-called Neo-Victorian novels, which are novels usually set in the nineteenth century but written by contemporary writers. Examples: Antonia Byatt Possession, Peter Carey Jack Maggs, Michel Faber The Crimson Petal and the White, Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea, John Fowles The French Lieutenant’s Woman. The Victorian era proves in the end ripe for appropriation because it throws into sharp relief many of the overriding concerns of the postmodern era: questions of identity; environmental or genetic conditioning; repressed or oppressed modes of sexuality; the operations of law and authority; science and religion; the postcolonial legacies of the Empire. Adaptation as a process Another important element in adaptation is represented by the fact that it is not only a formal entity, it is also a process. Neither the product nor the process of adaptation exist in a vacuum: they all have context, a time and a place, a society and a culture. This is because a text has to be subjected to processes of transcodification that necessarily and inevitably changes and alters it. Take the simple example of a movie adaptation from a novel: 1. Book 2. Film Script 3. Storyboard 4. Filming/Directing 5. Acting 6. Production 7. Post-Production 8. Advertisement 9. Movie 10. Market If adaptations are, by this definition, such inferior and secondary creations, why then are they so omnipresent in our culture and, indeed, increasing steadily in number? Think, for instance, of the endless and successful ytypes of adaptations: Comic books, graphic novels, official or unofficial sequels and prequels, re- boots, spin-offs, mash-up novels, re-makes. Change and recreation - The very transition from one semiotic system into another implies a change, which can be radical or limited, but inevitably a change or recreation is dictated by multiple reasons. As there cannot be a literal translation (because of the limited aesthetic quality and, in some case, its impossibility), there cannot be a literal adaptation. Adaptation is repetition, but without replication. There are many different possible intentions behind the act of adaptation: the urge to consume and erase the memory of the adapted text or the desire to pay tribute by copying. Adaptations such as film remakes can even be seen as mixed in intent: envious and worshipful at the same time. David Copperfield on Cinema and TV A novel on memory David’s childhood and adult life are recollected by the narrator as if they were moving scenes and shots, according to what many critics have identified as pre-cinematic technique. DC and memory The first objects that assume a distinct presence before me, as I look far back, into the blank of my infancy, are my mother with her pretty hair and youthful shape, and Peggotty with no shape at all […]. I believe I can remember these two at a little distance apart, dwarfed to my sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and I going unsteadily from the one to the other […]. Looking back, as I was saying, into the blank of my infancy, the first objects I can remember as standing out by themselves from a confusion of things, are my mother and Peggotty. What else do I remember? Let me see. There comes out of the cloud, our house – not new to me, but quite familiar, in its earliest remembrance («I observe») When my thoughts go back, now, to that slow agony of my youth, I wonder how much of the histories I invented for such people hangs like a mist of fancy over well-remembered facts! When I tread the old ground, I do not wonder that I seem to see and pity, going on before me, an innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange experiences and sordid things. (p. 150) The cinematic quality of Dickens’ novel is one of the reasons it has attracted the interest of various directors working for television and cinema. As foreseeable, the BBC has made David Copperfield a constant presence in its show schedule, since Dickens’ text (reputed as the quintessential Dickensian and Victorian novel) may be interpreted as an occasion to reflect in nostalgic terms on the past history of his characters, and of the whole nation as well. Magic lantern In David Copperfield Dickens anticipates specific cinematic techniques and that, in more general terms, his work «played some part, however small, in the cultural and material movements that eventually made cinema possible», according to Grahame. To Agnes: «I had a dim recollection of having seen heer at te theatre, as if I had seen her in a magic pale lantern». Cinema=vision/deceit If David Copperfield is, as Hills Miller writes, «before everything a novel of memory, recollecting from the point of view of a later time the slow formation of identity», it is also a novel on the formation of a national identity. David’s retrospective point of view as a child Dickens recalls in almost nostalgic terms, and despite the difficulties he (and David) had to suffer, what he reputed as an idyllic individual and collective memory, where there were no hints of social insurrections, and where people did not move at a faster pace by trains, but still (and only)by cart, without experiencing the revolutionary impact of railway journeys. Dir. George Cukor, David Copperfield (1935) For Jeffrey Sconce «the Cukor adaptation took place in a time when many still held great hopes that the movies might enlighten and edify the masses. Like Shakespeare, Dickens embodied (particularly for American audiences) the perfect balance of familiar entertainment value and classical cultural capital». It is emblematic that the producer, the director and the representatives of Hollywood’s cinematographic empire met members of the board of the Dickens Fellowship in a room of London’s Savoy Hotel, so as to find a common ground between the necessities of the American market and the typically British spirit of Dickens’ novel. Its aims were: to educate the massed by offering a moralized version od Dickens’ novel. Sir john Reith and BBC Reith was described by American Journalist John Gunther as ruling the BBc «with a Hand of granite». Reith believed that the radio «should inform, educate and entertain, and that a significant part of that objective would be delivered by bringing culture to a mass audience», in Richard Butt’s words. BBC: great acting settings/fidelity philological accuracy Simon Curtis’ successful two-episode adaptation, written by Adrian Hodges and broadcast in 1999, starred Daniel Radcliffe (young David), Bob Hoskins (Micawber), Maggie Smith (Betsy Trotwood) and again Ian McKellen, this time playing the odious Mr Creakle. In this version Rosa Dartle is consumed by an insane and morbid passion for Steerforth, and Emily Peggotty is explicitly depicted as a prostitute. Although times have changed the typical BBC trademark is intact. Dickens and mass culture Juliet John on Dickens: «Translatability and portability: the ability of his novels and indeed his image to travel across various media and national boundaries and, after his death, across historical periods». RAI The first broadcast was on 3rd January 1954 at 11.00. it is indicative that the first evening show consisted of a piece of classic literature: a drama based upon L’Osteria della Posta, by Carlo Goldoni. In 1958 almost 98% of the population could watch RAI’s broadcasted programs, which became a fundamental means to inform, instruct and educate the still partially illiterate audience. André Lefevere, Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame – All forms of translation, including adaptations, may be approached as “rewritings”, which are more ore less directly influenced by two systems of power:  Specialists – critics, rewiewer, teachers, etc.  Patronage – publischers, politicians, sponsor, etc. In Italy RAI represented the Patronage. Sceneggiati televisivi:  Little Women (Piccole donne, 1955, Anton Giulio Majano)  Wuthering Heights (Cime tempestose, 1956, Mario Landi)  Jane Eyre (1957, Anton Giulio Majano)  Pride and Prejudice (Orgoglio e pregiudizio, 1957, Daniele D’Anza)  Treasure Island (L’isola del tesoro, 1959, Anton Giulio Majano)  Tom Jones (1960, Eros Macchi)  The Pickwick Papers (Il circolo Pickwick, 1968, Ugo Gregoretti) It is a television on the nineteenth century and it is the nineteenth century of television, in which television is conceived as an evening school, with its television dramas resembling a circulating library. Anton Giulio Majano: David Copperfield (1966) From 26 December 1965 to 13 February 1966. 7 episodes, average duration of 70 minutes. 15 millions of viewers. Giancarlo Giannini as David Copperfield: Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. I was born at Blunderstone, in Suffolk, or ‘there by’, as they say in Scotland. I was a posthumous child. My father’s eyes had closed upon the light of this world six months, when mine opened on it (p. 9). Se io stesso risulterò l’eroe della mia vita, oppure se questa posizione sarà occupata da qualcun’altro, è cosa che dovrà risultare da queste pagine. Nacqui a Blunderstone, nel Suffolk, o giù di lì, come dicono in Scozia. Ero un figlio postumo. Gli occhi di mio padre si erano chiusi alla luce di questo mondo da sei mesi, quando io ebbi aperto i miei (min. 1:10). Carlo Romano as Wilkins Micawber James Kincaid has reflected on the value of laughter and humor in Dickens’ works, asserting that «the humor in the novel is subverted by the very nature of the tragic themes introduced». Nonetheless, David Copperfield is one of the funniest novels of Dickens. «Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery». Ileana Ghione as Clara Clara is not the childish mother of David, but a sad and meditative woman always dressed in black. In a few cases some of the most famous and heart- rending scenes and descriptions are either elided or changed, as when Clara says last goodbye to David: I was in the carrier’s cart when I heard her calling to me. I looked out, and she stood at the garden-gate alone, holding her baby up in her arms for me to see. It was cold still weather; and not a hair of her head, nor a fold of her dress, was stirred, as she looked intently at me, holding up her child. So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school – a silent presence near my bed – looking at me with the same intent face – holding up her baby in her arms (p. 110). In Majano’s version we simply see Clara looking out of her grated window, which here becomes symbolically a sort of prison for her, managed by Murdstone and his sister. Ubaldo Lay as murdstone Although Ubaldo Lay’s acting is convincing in reproducing Murdstone’s firmness, he is less brutal than Dickens’s original character. The same goes for Salem House, where Mr Creakle’s floggings are only hinted at. Also in these cases, the “homely” framework of the episodes’ broadcasting motivated a partial censorship of what were probably reputed at the time as the novel’s most unsuitable scenes for an Italian general public, such as those introducing violence or references to sex. Majano’s Murstone is certainly not extempt from evil and wickedness, since at a certain point he even courts Dora Spenlow, speeding up David’s proposal. Mr. Dick Mr. Dick is another embodiment of the figure of the ideal artist, this time described as a free, independent and almost childish writer. In particular in the first episodes (which feature young David) Majano gives visual form to Dickens’s “observatory” narration based upon memory, with Mr. Dick, his endless “Memorial” and his flying kites used as the symbols of an Edenic (human and artistic) condition that was on the verge of collapsing. Mr. Dick is the embodiment of the artist figure. Mr. Dick and I soon became the best of friends, and very often, when his day’s work was done, went out together to fly the great kite. Every day of his life he had a long sitting at the Memorial, which never made the least progress, however hard he labored, for King Charles the First always strayed into it, sooner or later, and then it was thrown aside, and another one begun. He never looked so serene as he did then. I used to fancy, as I sat by him of an evening, on a green slope, and saw him watch the kite high in the quiet air, that it lifted his mind out of its confusion, and bore it (such was my boyish thought) into the skies. As he wound the string in and it came lower and lower down out of the beautiful light, until it fluttered to the ground, and lay there like a dead thing, he seemed to wake gradually out of a dream; and I remember to have seen him take it up, and look about him in a lost way, as if they had both come down together, so that I pitied him with all my heart (pp. 188-189). Family values Annie Strong – Family values are the centre of most episodes of Majano’s adaptation, as in the case of Annie Strong’s infatuation for her cousin Jack Maldon. Dickens is much more ambiguous and less explicit on the woman’s adultery; on the contrary, he shows that she is fatally attracted by Maldon and that she was probably unfaithful to Mr. Strong. Addressing Maldon, Annie admits: «You repel me, as I repel myself». Annie: «Ho una sola speranza, che tu possa perdonarmi». Dr. Strong: «Ti ho già perdonata». Dora Spenlow – as for Dora, who in Majano’s version is slightly meditative, weak and sad (rather than frivolous and childish, as she is depicted by Dickens), the reasons for her death are totally altered. Whereas in Dickens’s novel Dora dies after she suffered a miscarriage, in Majano she dies of leukemia, and David even mentions Rudolph Virchow’s studies. Apart from the anachronism (the term “leukemia” was introduced not earlier than 1856, six years after Dickens’s novel was published), the decision to have Dora dying of this illness is probably motivated by the fact that a reference to miscarriage (and the death of an unborn child) could have been too strong for a Sunday evening familial audience in 1960s Italy. The almost ritual watching of Majano’s David Copperfield (like other television dramas in Italy) took place on Sundays, with families gathered around their TV sets, so as to promote a domestic viewing practice that was reflected by the nature, structure and meanings conveyed by this adaptation. Television sets were not simply at home in Italian houses: they increasingly became symbols of home and projected a specific homely view of familial relationships and values. Majano interprets David Copperfield as a Künstlerroman that focuses on David’s evolution as an artist, using it as a way to introduce viewers to Dickens’s own vicissitudes as a novelist. The presence, at the beginning of the first episode, of the cover of Dickens’s novel David Copperfield, of its 1850 illustrations and of David’s photograph as an infant are explicit in conflating Charles Dickens and David Copperfield. Dora Spenlow: «I libri [di David] faranno di lui l’amico del mondo» Postman: «La conosciamo tutti. Lei è diventato un amico nelle nostre case». audiovisual version uses the past to address the present, characterized by strong social protests against Thatcherism and its political views. Guido Gregoretti’s Italian adaptation of The Pickwick Papers, named Il circolo Pickwick (broadcasted from February 4th 1968 on the RAI), is a totally different re-reading of Dickens’s text. In particular, Gregoretti wanted to break with the classical tradition of the sceneggiati televisivi, and specifically against Anton Giulio Majano’s David Copperfield, which proposed a nostalgic view of family values and society. Whereas Majano’s version was slow-paced and quiet, Gregoretti’s Il Circolo Pickwick is deliberately characterized by a very fast rhythm and pace, and also by original and experimental choices. This and other revolutionary references and directing strategies should alert viewers on the historical and political context of this adaptation. The year 1968 was indeed the symbolic beginning of social protest and social movements, in Italy and abroad. On the 1st of March 1968, only a few weeks after Il Circolo Pickwick was broadcast, there were in Rome violent social confrontations between university students and policemen. This event was known as La battaglia di Valle Giulia, resulting in 450 wounded students and 150 wounded agents. Avete facce di figli di papà. Buona razza non mente. Avete lo stesso occhio cattivo. Siete paurosi, incerti, disperati (benissimo) ma sapete anche come essere prepotenti, ricattatori e sicuri: prerogative piccoloborghesi, amici. Quando ieri a Valle Giulia avete fatto a botte coi poliziotti, io simpatizzavo coi poliziotti! Perché i poliziotti sono figli di poveri. Vengono da periferie, contadine o urbane che siano. […] A Valle Giulia, ieri, si è cosi avuto un frammento di lotta di classe: e voi, amici (benché dalla parte della ragione) eravate i ricchi, mentre i poliziotti (che erano dalla parte del torto) erano i poveri. Bella vittoria, dunque, la vostra! In questi casi, ai poliziotti si danno i fiori, amici. (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Il PCI ai giovani, 1968) The first and most evident sign of Gregoretti’s revolutionary approach is the decision to introduce Gregoretti himself as a contemporary journalist (dressed in modern clothes) interviewing the various characters in a sort of reportage. Buonasera signori. Ci troviamo nella sede sociale del Circolo pickwick a Londra. È il 15 settembre del 1837 e questa sera è riunita l’assemblea straordinaria dei soci per approvare un’importante iniziativa. Così almeno loro dicono. Che cosa sia, o a che cosa serva questo Circolo Pickwick, non siamo riusciti a capirlo molto bene. I suoi componenti per lo più sono dei borghesotti benestanti che campano di rendita e non hanno un gran che da fare (episodio1; min 0.55). One of the most interesting characters is Mr. Jingle (played by Gigi Proietti) who reproduces the rapid, disjointed and “telegraphic” way of speaking of Dickens’s original character. Dickens’s inspiration for Jingle’s speech patterns probably derived from his knowledge of stenography when he worked at the Doctors’ Commons as journalist and reporter. Indeed Pickwick defines Jingle’s way of speaking as «the stranger’s system of stenography» which is typical of his «rapid and disjointed communication». Film: «Come ben sapete, o meglio come vi stavo dicendo pocanzi, la nostra meta è la capital del Kent, terra meravigliosa in cui tutto è vacillante, dagli archi alle porte sassoni antiche, meravigliose – attenti alla testa! – la testa. Occhio: punto insidioso. Due giorni fa – cinque bambini – la mamma – una donna alta che masticava un sandwich – non vede l’arco – un colpo – una botta – splact! – la testa della madre non c’è più – i cinque bambini guardano – il sandwich sempre in mano – non c’è più bocca per mangiarlo». Book: «Heads, heads – take care of your heads!» cried the loquacious strenger, as they came out under the low archway, which in those days formed the entrance of the coach-yard. «Terrible palce – dangerous work – other day – five children – mother – tall lady, eating sandwiches – forgot the arch – crash – knock – chidren lookround – mother’s head off – sandwich in her hand – no mouth to put in – head of a family off – shocking, shocking!» According to Hugo Bowles, Jingle’s «telegraphic speech leaves out words with a grammatical function such as pronouns, articles, and prepositions but sill conveys his meaning lexically with nouns and adjectives. The stranger’s system of stenography’ reminds Dickens of the reductiveness and economy of the stenography that he knew, where some words can be omitted entirely or represented as single arbitrary characters». Sam Weller (Enzo Cerusico) identifies the proletariat and represents the revolutionary character of this adaptation. Chapter 19, A Pleasant Day with an Unpleasant Termination, describes Pickwick and his friends entering without knowking the property owned by Captain Boldwig (Marco Ferreri), who finds Pickwick sleeping. Pickwick, who still sleeps, is put in a fence surrounded by animals and mocked by Boldwick’s countrymen and servants. Then Sam Weller saves Pickwick and throws Boldwig himself inside the fence, in the mud, in a scene that is not present in Dickens’s novel. Then Welles addressed the peasant by using the tone of a political meeting: «Ora ho qualcosa da dirvi anche io, sottosviluppati cronici. Dannati della terra. Pecoroni. Come ha detto bene il vostro agrario mangialetame. Voi, che parlate di giustizia e ingiustizia. E intanto vi fate rubare e rivendere le vostre bestie. Sotto il vostro naso. Cosa aspettate a far cessare questa ingiustizia. Questa rapina. Questa schifezza sociale. Cosa aspettate a dire: “Basta, è ora di finirla! Le bestie ai contadini!”. E ora fratelli seguite il mio esempio. Riprendiamoci ognuno la bestia sua. Avanti!». Then the peasants, convinced by Weller’s speech, come inside the fence and take their animas back, leaving Boldwig alone (and dirty). Pickwick, who is the expression of a peaceful and moderate approach, says: «Ti ho sentito formulare delle ambigue locuzioni: le bestie ai contadini, ognuno si riprenda ciò che è suo. Che cosa volevi dire?». Sam replies that he read them on a small book given to him by «un tizio con la barba. Uno che ho conosciuto ad Hyde Park. Uno straniero. Un tipo molto strano, signore» (episode 3, min. 23:42). Of course, here the allusion is to Karl Marx, although this is an anachronism (since the novel is actually set during the 1820s and Marx was in London during the 1840s). Finale Il circolo Pickwick ends with Pickwick leaving the jail in which he was wrongly incarcerated (here he will meet Mr. Jingle, and help him). Whereas at the end of Dickens’s novel, Pickwick dissolves his club and decides to lead a quiet life in the countryside, in Gregoretti’s case the notion of freedom and liberty are fundamental, and represent a symbolic reference to the desire for freedom that was animating younger generations. Gregoretti reads Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers according to a certain political and ideological feeling and filter that was characterizing Italian society and culture at that time. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hide on Cinema and TV The Strange Case of dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson is a multiple novel in many respects, because multiplicity does not only represent its main theme but it is also a stylistic and structural trait. The identity fragmentation of its protagonists is therefore reflected in the narrative fragmentation, and even in the genesis, of this text. The notion of double personality or split personality suits the medium of audiovisual texts, because of its striking visuality; at the same time, however, in the transition from one semiotic system to another changes are inevitable. According to Sarah Cardwell «every adaptation is an authored, conscious response to, or interpretation of a source text, one that may or may not be concerned with ‘fidelity’ but is necessarily concerned with the creation of an independent film or television text». A theatrical adaptation of the tale for the stage was first performed in 1887, with Richard Mansfield playing Jekyll/Hyde. Written by Thomas Russell Sullivan, this theatrical adaptation introduced Hyde’s girlfriend and her father-in law, two figures that are absent in the source text. Stevenson, however, was not upset by these choices and innovations; on the contrary, he enjoyed them. An anecdote: Because of his great acting ability in turning on the stage from Jekyll to Hyde, Mansfield even became one of the suspects for Jack the Ripper’s murders! Many of the following movies were inspired by THIS famous theatrical version. Stevenson’s narrative of identity fragmentation, which has become part of the myths of modernity, has been reflected by the multifaceted version of this source text. Jekyll and Hyde on the screen As Linda Dryden underlines «the transformation of the urbane Jekyll into the monstrous Hyde is particularly suited to the medium of film because of its startling visual impact, and it is this bizarre event that captures the popular imagination and propels this extraordinary tale into new centuries with renewed relevance and immediacy». Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is, at the same time, a text strongly focused on a central theme (evil vs good) and an intimately elusive story. Even the genesis of the novel is based on a multiplication of texts and narratives. According to Stevenson’s wife Fanny, she woke up her husband because she was sure he was having a nightmare. Stevenson was irritated because he was dreaming «a fine bogey tale» that he wanted to conclude: «For two days I went about racking my brain for a plot of any sort; and on the second night I dreamed the scene at the window, and a scene afterward split in two, in which Hyde, pursued for some crime, took the powder and underwent the change in the presence of his pursuers. All the rest was made awake, and consciously» (Robert Louis Stevenson). After having read the first draft to his wife, Stevenson decided to destroy this first version and re-wrote it. This double deriving from an original wrong experiment was written, and published in a couple of months. The double The idea of the doppelgänger was not however new, and represented an obsession for Stevenson, which he included in the drama Deacon Broadie, or the Double Life, alongside short stories such as Thrawn Janet (1881), Markheim (1884) and in the novel Master of Ballantrae (1888). Furthermore, Stevenson goes back to a long tradition including The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg (1824), William Wilson (1840) by Edgar Allan Poe and Fiodor Dostoevsky’s The Double (1846). At the same time, Stevenson had an enormous impact on future generations of writers, from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) to Joseph Conrad in The Secret Sharer (1911), and hundreds of other writers and artists. From a narratological point of view the story is fragmented because it is made up of conflicting narratives and points of view; furthermore, there is a paradox at the heart of it: the transformation is never really explained in detail, and even Hyde’s physical features are not explicitly illustrated. In the novel, Richard Enfield, a distant relative of Jekyll, offers the first depiction of Hyde as a creature that is not easy to describe: «He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point. He’s an extraordinary looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no hand of it; I can’t describe him. And it’s not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment». He put the glass to his lips, and drank at one gulp. A cry followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, starting with injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I looked there came, I thought, a change – he seemed to swell – his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter – and the next moment, I had sprung to my feet and leaped back against the wall, my arm raised to shield me from that prodigy, my mind submerged in terror. «O God!» I screamed, and «O God!» again and again; for there before my eyes – pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death – there stood Henry Jekyll! At the end of this adaptation, when Jekyll is in front of Utterson, he describes his feelings during the transformation, thus replicating Jekyll’s final confession in Stevenson’s narrative. Instead of references to Victorian laboratories, here the allusion is to the use of drugs and to their lethal consequences: Ero il primo essere di una nuova specie, autocreata razionalmente dall’uomo in tutta la storia dell’universo. Ero Edward Hyde, l’incarnazione di un aspetto nascosto nella mia natura da sempre. Mi accorsi che ero diminuito di statua. Provavo un’inebriante sensazione di indifferenza. Capii di essere malvagio. Di una malvagità perfetta, libera da ogni censura. La malvagità della specie umana, quando si inebria di sé. After Jekyll there will be in Italy a couple of other adaptations: the first one was as the surreal comedy Dottor Jekyll e gentile signora (1979) by Steno (Stefano Vanzina), with Paolo Villaggio and Edwige Fenech (Barbara Wimply, Jekyll’s assistant). Translated into English as Dr. Jekyll Likes them Hot, the basic plot is as follows: The evil genius Dr. Jekyll, counselor of the powerful multinational food company PANTAC which has flooded the world with a large number of pollutants and harmful products, accidentally drinks the serum of good, turning into a good-natured and placid Mr. Hyde. The initial idea however gradually loses strength, and the movie at the end is suspended between a parody of pacifism and an accusation against pollution. Then in 2006 the group of comedians known as Premiata Ditta (Tiziana Foschi, Pino Insegno, Roberto Ciufoli e Francesca Draghetti) tried to offer their own version of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in their Premiata Teleditta 4 musical adaptation entitled Il Dottor Jekyll e Mr. Hyde. But their attempt to offer an updated musical based on the model of the Quartetto Cetra, thus including contemporary musical references to Italian singers, from Zucchero to Celentano, Ligabue and Jovanotti, fails miserably. Directed by Luigi Simonetti, this version lacks the quality of the previous musical by the Quartetto Cetra and is full of explicit references to sex (just to offer and example, Jekyll is described as sexually impotent, unlike Hyde) and is characterized by an extreme use of other textual (or rather cinematographic) sources ranging from Dracula to Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper. In this sense, rather than a parody, this musical is an example of pastiche in Fredric Jameson’s definition: «Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language»; this is «a neutral practice of such mimicry, without any of parody’s ulterior motives, amputated of the satiric impulse», adding that this is a form of blank parody. The Secret Agent and Adaptation In this novel, psychological investigation does not simply represent the frame of the narrative, but on the contrary its central feature; this, at least, according to the author’s expectations. At the same time, its narrative construction is based on fragmentation and allusion. Metaphorically, the novel’s fragmented body corresponds to the image of Stevie’s mutilated body: Another waterproof sheet was spread over that table in the manner of a table-cloth, with the corners turned over a sort of mound – a heap of rags, scorched and bloodstained, half concealing what might have been an accumulation of raw material for a cannibal feast. It required considerable firmness of mind not to recoil before that sight. The man, whoever he was, had died instantaneously; and yet it seemed impossible to believe that a human body could have reached that state of disintegration without passing through the pangs of inconceivable agony. Yuet May Chang writes that «in The Secret Agent images of fragmentation through a fragmented narrative re-enact the sacrificial rite. If the world remains fragmented and the future of humankind uncertain, the reader can keep on adding bits and pieces of information for his or her personal experience to evaluate and re-evaluate the novel as well as what it says about the human condition». Usually, the transition from one system of signs into another (for instance from novel into film, as in the case of The Secret Agent) implies an unavoidable loss, or the erasure of ancillary elements. What survives in a good adaptation should be the most representative themes of the original text, which sometimes are not necessarily the most explicit elements and features. Adaptation involves the desire to push interpretation forward, because each adaptation is always an interpretation, by creating something similar albeit not identical, a repetition without replication, in Linda Hutcheon’s words. Then, she adds: «Whatever the motive, from the adapter’s perspective, adaptation is an act of appropriating or salvaging and this is always a double process of interpreting and then creating something new». Sabotage – Alfred Hitchcock (1936) The title alludes to the sabotage of London’s electric grid, which opens the movie. Karl Anton Verloc is the owner of a cinema and is married to Sylvia, who lives with her brother Stevie. The characters of Ossipon and Inspector Heat are conflated in Ted Spencer, a greengrocer who is in truth an undercover police detective, and who is Verloc’s love rival in this version of Conrad’s story. During dinner, Sylvia kills her husband with a carving knife after having discovered that he involved her brother in the failing bombing of the Piccadilly Circus underground. An explosion at the end of the movie (caused by The Professor) destroys the cinema and all evidence of Verloc’s death, thus saving Sylvia from jail. In the last scene, the investigator remains dubious on the eventual guilt of Sylvia: «That’s queer. She said that Verloc was dead. But she said if before. Or was it after? I can’t remember». Although Hitchcock appears to have simplified the narrative scheme adopted by Conrad, other choices, such as to turn Verloc from the owner of a seedy shop selling pornographic books in Soho to the owner of a cinema, reinforce a theme that is fundamental in Conrad’s story: the contrast between a tedious ordinary life and the destructive possibilities offered by the liberation of the protagonists’ desires. Moreover, Hitchcock found in The Secret Agent many of the issues that were typical in his own movies, such as the presence of strong-willed women, family murders, innocents brutally killed, and the difficult and sometimes tragic relationship between the sexes. The Secret Agent – David Drury, BBC (1992) The sensation of unappeasable hunger, not unknown after the strain of a hazardous enterprise to adventurers of tougher fiber than Mr Verloc, overcame him again. The piece of roast beef, laid out in the likeness of funereal baked meats for Stevie’s obsequies, offered itself largely to his notice. And Mr Verloc again partook. He partook ravenously, without restraint and decency, cutting thick slices with the sharp carving knife, and swallowing them without bread. (p.163) The Secret Agent – Christopher Hampton (1996) «Remorse is for the weak. There could be no progress, no solutions until you make a clear decision to exterminate the weak». «The weak! The source of all evil on this earth! I told him that I dreamt of a world like shambles, where the weak would be taken in hand for utter extermination». «Do you understand Ossipon? The source of all evil! They are our sinister masters – the weak, the flabby, the cowardly, the faint of heart and the slavish of mind. They have power. They are the multitude. Theirs is the kingdom of the earth. Exterminate, exterminate!». The Secret Agent – Charles McDougall, BBC (2016) Peter Lancelot Mallios, in this respect, has noticed that the novel «features the attempted bombing of a symbolic national and imperial structure so much like the World Trade Center, whose plot even turns on a core emptiness – i.e. not an actual terrorist threat, but rather the reactionary fabrication of one to alarm the media and trigger aggressive state action», adding that there are analogies «with the “missing” weapons of mass destruction that authorized the 2003 U.S. military intervention in Iraq». «You can’t win this time, we’re too many for you». «If we torture him, he wins». Television and historicity – The Years of Lead The strategy of Tension The very term Strategy of Tension was introduced by British journalist Leslie Finer in an article published in The Observer on 7 December 1969, only six days before Piazza Fontana’s tragic bombing, when describing the United States’s policy of destabilisation in the Mediterranean Area and specifically in Greece. The term strategia della tensione referred to national and international seditious strategies involving governments, or security apparatuses, which fostered and encouraged terrorist acts, bombings, murders, and the intervention of agents that invented or created attacks (attributed to a certain political faction) so as to justify repressive forms of counter- reaction. L’Agente Segreto – Antonio Calenda, RAI (1978) La strage di piazza fontana – During the terrorist attack at Piazza Fontana, which took place on 12 December 1969, a bomb exploded at the headquarters of the Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in the centre of Milan, killing 17 people and wounding more than eighty persons. After a very long trial and difficult investigations (with multiple misdirection), judges came to the conclusion that the reason behind this bombing was the attempt to convince Prime Minister Mariano Rumòr of the Christian Democrats to lay the blame upon anarchists and left-wing extremists, thus imposing an emergency rule, and the successive installation of an authoritarian regime in Italy. The real instigators of the bombing were extreme right-winged movements, among which Ordine Nuovo had an important role. «There is a proverb in this country which says prevention is better than cure», interrupted Mr Vladimir, throwing himself into the arm-chair. «It is stupid in a general way. There is no end to prevention. But it is characteristic. They dislike finality in this country. We don’t want prevention, we want cure». (p. 19) «What we want is to administer a tonic to the Conference in Milan. Its deliberations upon international action for the suppression of political crime don’t seem to get anywhere. England lags. This country is absurd with its sentimental regard for individual liberty. A series of outrages», Mr Vladimir continued calmly, «executed here in this country; not only planned here – that would not do – they would not mind. Your friends could set half the Continent on fire without influencing the public opinion here in favour of a universal repressive legislation. They will not look outside their backyard here». (p. 22) Yundt: «Tu stai scrivendo un libro. Te la prendi con calma. La società ti ha ammansito. Parole, sempre e soltanto parole. E l’azione? Cosa facciamo per far finire l’ingiustizia? Siete pigri. Se avessi avuto tre uomini decisi, il futuro sarebbe cominciato con l’alba di una magnifica esplosione». Yundt: «Non capite che viviamo in un mondo di cannibali. Altro che scienza ed economia. In questo mondo si vive divorando la carne del popolo. E bevendone il sangue. Ma forse i tempi non sono ancora maturi». In contrast with future adaptations (Hampton and the two BBC) here the Professor (Franco Parenti) is a blank figure. He is neither an exalted maniac (BBC version 2016) nor an algid creator of death (Hampton’s movie 1996), but more a detached “technician”. After being informed of Winne’s death by Ossipon, the Professor decides to go away. His last words are: «Pazzia, disperazione, Parole. Non esistono nel mondo mediocre e avvilito di cui siamo schiavi. Magari esistessero. Sarebbero la forza che non abbiamo. Lo strumento della nostra ribellione. Le leve per muovere il mondo, proibite dalle leggi mediocri e insulse che governano il branco. Il tuo branco, Ossipon». Under Western Eyes (1911) This is a novel by Joseph Conrad. The novel takes place in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Geneva, Switzerland, and is viewed as Conrad's response to the themes explored in Crime and Punishment; This novel is considered to be one of Conrad's major works and is close in subject matter to The Secret Agent. It is full of cynicism and conflict about the historical failures of revolutionary movements and ideals. The phenomenon of adaption can be defined from three distinct, but interrelated, perspectives: 1. As a formal entity or product, therefore an adaptation is an announced and extensive transposition of a particular work, or works. This transcoding can involve shifts of medium, genre or frame and context: telling the same story from a different point of view, for instance, can create a different interpretation. 2. As a process of creation, the act of adaptation always involves both re-interpretation and re-creation. This has been called both appropriation and salvaging, depending on the perspective. 3. As a process of reception, adaptation is a form of intertextuality: we can experience adaptations s palimpsest through our memory of other works that resonate through repetition with variation. In short, adaptation can be described as:  An acknowledge transposition of a recognizable other work of works  A creative and interpretative act of appropriation/salvaging  An extended intertextual engagement with the adapted work Therefore an adaptation is a derivation that is not derivate, a second work that is not secondary. There is a difference between never wanting a story to end 8seqquels and prequels) and wanting to retell the same story over and over in different ways. With adaptations we seem to desire the repetition as much as the change. Exactly what gets adapted? How? Ideas themselves cannot be copyrighted, only their expression can be defended, and here lies the whole problem. Adaptation shows that form (expression) can be separated from content (ideas): the form changes with adaptation but the content persists. But what exactly constitutes that transferred and transmuted content? Most theories of adaptation assume that the story is the core of what is transposed across different medias and genres, each of which deals with that story in different ways and through different modes of engagement (narrating, performing or interacting). Considering changes in the more general manner of story representation, differences in what gets adapted begin to appear. This is because each manner involves a different mode of engagement both from the audience and the adapter: being shown a story is not the same ad being told it, with each mode different things get adapted in different ways. Double vision: defining adaptation As a product, an adaptation can be given a formal definition, but as a process (of creation and reception) other aspects have to be considered. Adaptation as Product: announced, extensive, specific transcoding Adaptations are often compared to translations, as reworkings of particular other texts. Just as there is no such thing as a literal translation, there can be no literal adaptation. Transposition to another medium, or even moving with the same one, always means change or “reformatting”, and there will always be both gains and losses. Adaptations are re-mediation, specifically translations in the form of intersemiotic transpositions from one system of signs (ex. word) to another (ex. images). This is translation, but in a very specific sense: as a transmutation or transcoding, a recording into a new set of conventions as well as signs. Adaptation as Process: Creative Interpretation/Interpretive Creation Adapting can be a process of appropriation, of taking possess of another’s story and filtering it through one’s own sensibility, interests and talents. Therefore, adapters are first interprets and then creators. For example, an adapter coming to a story with the idea of adapting it into a film would be attracted by different aspects of it than an opera librettist would be. Usually adaptions, especially from long novels, mean that the adapter’s job is one of subtraction or contraction. Of course, it is not always the case, short stories adaptations has to expand their source material considerably in order to be transposed into a film. Of course there is a wide range of reasons why adapters might choose a particular story to transcode into a particular medium or genre. This is one of the reason why the concept of fidelity is not adequate to discuss the process of adaptation. Whatever the movie, from the adapter’s perspective, adaptation is an act of appropriating or salvaging, and this is always a double process of interpreting and then creating something new. One way to think about unsuccessful adaptations is not in terms of infidelity to a prior text, but in terms of a lack of creativity and skill to make it one’s own. For the audience, adaptation as “adaptation” is a kind of intertextuality, an ongoing dialogical process in which we compare the work we already know with the one we are experiencing. Texts are said to be mosaic of visible and invisible citations, always already written and read. The same thing is true for adaptations. The Audience’s “Palimpsestuous” Intertextuality For audiences such adaptations are directly and openly connected to recognizable other works, and that connection is part of their formal identity, but also their hermeneutic identity. As audience members, we need memory in order to experience differences as well as similarity. Modes of engagement A double definition of adaptation as a product (extensive, particular transcoding) and as a process (creative reinterpretation and palimpsestic intertextuality) is one way to address the various dimensions of this phenomenon. There are at least three modes of engagement that are “immersive”, though to different degrees and different ways:  The telling mode (a novel), immerses us through imagination in a fictional world;  The showing mode (plays and films) immerses us through the perception of the aural and visual;  The participatory mode (videogames) immerses us physically and kinesthetically. All of them are immersive, but only the last of them is called “interactive”. Each mode, like each medium, has its own specificity and essence. No mode is good at doing one thing and not another; but each has its different means of expression (media and genres) and so can aim at and achieve certain things better than others. Stories, however, do not consist only of the material means of their transmission (media) or the rules that structure them (genre). Those means and rules are utilized by someone to permit and channel narrative expectations and communicative narrative meaning to someone in some context, with that intent. Framing Adaptation These ways of engaging with stories do not ever take place in a vacuum: we engage in time and space, within a particular society and a general culture. The context of creation and reception are material, public, and economic as much as they are cultural, personal and aesthetic. This explains why major shifts in a story’s context (ex. a national setting or time period) can change radically how the transported story is interpreted ideologically and literally. In shifting cultures, and therefore shifting languages, adaptation makes alterations that reveal much about the larger context of reception and production. Adapters often “indigenize” stories, to use an anthropological term. Technology too has probably always framed and driven adaptation, in that new media have constantly opened the door for new possibilities for all three modes of engagement. One of the central beliefs of film adaptation theory is that audiences are more demanding of fidelity when dealing with classics, such as the works of Dickens. But a new cult of popular classic, such as the works of J.K. Rowling, are now being made visible and audible and their readers are proving to be just as demanding. Moreover, now that I know what a game of Quidditch can look like from the movies, I suspect I will never be able to recapture my first imagined versions again. Palimpsest make for permanent change. A further framing of adaptation across all modes of engagement is economic. General economic issues, such as the financing and distribution of different media and art form, must be considered in any general theorizing of adaptation. To appeal to a global market, or to a particular one, a TV-series or a stage musical may have to alter the cultural, regional or historical specifics of the text being adapted. Videogames derived from popular films, and vice versa, are clearly ways to capitalize on a franchise and extend its market. Adaptation has an interesting analogy with Darwin’s theory of evolution, where genetic adaptation is presented as the biological process of mutation or adjustment through adaptation to a particular environment. Stories also evolve by adaptation and are not immutable over time. Sometimes, like biological adaptation, cultural adaptation involves migration to favorable conditions: stories travel to different cultures and different media. In short, stories adapt just as they are adapted. Adaptation, like evolution, is a transgenerational phenomenon. Stories do get retold in different ways, in new material and cultural environments. Like genres, they adapt to those new environment by virtue of mutation, and the fittest do more than survive: they flourish. Adaptation ad Appropriation Julie Sanders Any exploration of intertextuality, and its specific manifestation in the forms of adaptation and appropriation, is inevitably interested in how art creates art, or how literature is made by literature. Any text is an intertext, suggesting that the works of previous and surrounding cultures were always present in literature. Texts were not solely dependent on their authors for the production of meaning, but also benefitted by readers who created their own intertextual networks. Adaptations and appropriations can vary in how explicitly they state their intertextual purpose. In appropriations the intertextual relationship may be less explicit, but what is often inescapable is the fact that a political or ethical commitment shapes a writer’s, director’s or performer’s decision to re-interpret a source text. The inherent intertextuality of literature encourages the ongoing, evolving production of meaning and ever-expanding network of textual relations. Literary texts are built from systems, codes and traditions established by previous works of literature, also from systems, codes and traditions derived from companion art forms. Adaptation and appropriation are inevitably involved in the performance of textual echo and allusion, but this does not usually equate to the fragmentary bricolage of quotation more commonly understood as the operative mode of intertextuality. This purposeful reassembly of fragments to form a new whole is, undoubtedly, an active element in many of the postmodernists texts. The required rereading alongside of source and adaptation demands a knowledge on the part of the reader (or spectator) of the source when encountering the derivate or responsive text. In this respect, adaptations becomes a veritable marker of canonical status and could be defined as a conservative genre. Re-vision: the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction. We need to know the writing of the past and know it differently than we have ever known it. Not to pass on a tradition but to break its hold over us. Transtextuality: any text is a hypertext, grafting itself onto a hypotext, an earlier text that it imitates or transforms. Text feed off each other and create other texts, and other critical studies, literature creates other literature. Part of the sheer pleasure of the reading experience must be the tension between familiar and new, and the recognition both of similarity and difference between ourselves and between texts. The pleasure exists and persists in the act of reading in, around and on.