Adaptation studies: literature vs. cinema – translation or dialogue?

Straipsnyje apibrėžiamas ekranizacijos (adaptacijos) studijų teorijos laukas ir apmąstoma teorijos istorija, susijusi su intermedialiosios sąveikos tarp literatūros ir kino klausimais. Analitinė istorijos apžvalga leidžia išskirti teorinės refleksijos tendencijas bei jų pokyčius ir suvokti, kad esmines adaptacijos problemas išprovokavo pati adaptacijos sąvoka, o nulėmė du dalykai – ekranizacijos kaip vertimo ar analogijos (parafrazės) idėja bei adaptacijos kaip produkto (rezultato) ir sykiu proceso suvokimas, t. y. bandymai tuo pat metu svarstyti ir filmo suvokimo, ir kūrimo procesus. Šios idėjos straipsnyje siejamos su vienakryptę literatūros ir kino ryšio viziją (literatūra ->kinas) kuriančiu linijiniu komunikacijos modeliu siuntėjas (autorius-literatas) ->pranešimas (literatūros kūrinys) ->tekstinis gavėjas (adaptacija) ->gavėjas (žiūrovas), kuris inspiruoja prieigas, neatsižvelgiančias į tekstų egzistavimo ir funkcionavimo kultūroje sąlygas bei ypatumus. O alternatyvią prieigą, kurios užuomazgos matomos pastarųjų metų darbuose, grindžia kitas – „erdvinis“ – modelis: tekstas (adaptacija-hipertekstas) – kultūra (kiti tekstai, tarp kurių – literatūrinis hipotekstas) – skaitytojas-žiūrovas. Jis kloja pamatus kitai – adaptacijos- dialogo (Roberto Stamo žodžiais, „daugiasluoksnių intertekstinių derybų rūšies“) – sampratai ir ne tik leidžia siūlyti neišsprendžiamų vertimo idėjos lauke problemų sprendimus, bet sykiu kvestionuoti pačios sąvokos adaptacija bei jos apibrėžimų teisėtumą.This article explores certain theoretical issues in adaptation studies, with a special focus on the intermedial aspects of screen adaptations of literary works. It aims to reexamine approaches to adaptation in order to define the reasons for the survival of "fidelity discourse", since even those who have challenged the notion of a one-way interaction between literature and film have fallen into the heresy of fidelity criticism. An analytical review of adaptation studies clarifies several key issues. Firstly, the search for fidelity is stimulated by the notion of adaptation itself inasmuch as it presupposes the process of adjusting something to something else. Secondly, the main theoretical problems ensue from attempts to treat the process and the product as one, i.e., to refer to the processes of creation and reception simultaneously. And finally, the metaphors used in the theoretical analysis of adaptation – such as "transposition", "transformation", "transmutation", "transmedialization", and "transfiguration" – imply the action of transfer which is associated with an idea of (semiotic) translation. This idea suggests a hierarchical relationship between literature and film with the valuable primacy placed on the former, thus grounding any axiological evaluations of the changes carried out in a film version. The monologic nature of the idea of translation, which assumes a one-way interaction in which the listener is completely passive, corresponds with the monologic linear model of communication. This model becomes the basis of the exploration of adaptation from two perspectives (creation and reception), because it creates a link between the author of a literary text and the spectator of a film. The linear model sender (author of literary work) ->message (literary work) ->textual receiver (adaptation) ->addressee (spectator) assigns the highest rights to the author of a literary text, disregards the function of a screenplay (which complicates the problem of re-presentation), deprives the moviemakers of their artistic rights, exposes the secondary status of a film, and underestimates the multiformity and variety of cultural exchange in adaptation. However, the studies of Robert Stam and Kamilla Elliott suggest a framework for an alternative approach. While neither Stam nor Elliott separate the processes of creation and reception, Elliott’s conception of a reciprocal relationship between literature and film, and Stam’s recommendation to pay attention to the several types of transtextual relations described by Gérard Genette, facilitate a shift away from the idea of translation. The logic of their argumentation brings adaptation studies into the sphere of multilayered and multifarious dialogue in which speaker and listener are considered to be equally active partners of communication. This dialogical sphere "proposes" another, spatial, conception of aesthetic communication: text (adaptation/hypertext) – culture (texts of different media) – reader-spectator. This conception replaces the metaphor of translation with that of dialogue. It creates the basis of an approach which could solve the "paradoxes of adaptation" in as much as it acknowledges the adaptation as a text which is not secondary and considers the process of its reception. It does not aim to define authorial intentions or solve the problem of fidelity. To the contrary, in the process of exploring hypertextual relations it discusses the significant differences between hypotext and hypertext instead of discussing transformations or changes. Moreover, it does not limit the cultural exchange present in adaptation to a hypertextual relationship. It considers adaptation as "a kind of multileveled negotiation of intertexts" (Stam, "Beyond Fidelity", p. 67). It explores the ways in which the movie-adaptation configures a dialogue with other works of different media in order to define the strategies of meaning this multilayered dialogue creates. Thus, it abandons the idea of the primacy of literary text and axiological conclusions, and, finally, disputes the legitimacy of the term of adaptation as such