Don Quijote im film

Don Quijote on Screen This study provides a critical overview of the cinematic adaptations of Don Quijote. It is pointed out that in iconographical terms there is no rupture between the pre-cinematic illustrations of the novel and the protagonists' representation on screen. Rather, it is shown that filmmakers tend to adhere to Dor's popular illustrations as their source of inspiration. The study proceeds by identifying the specific challenges and possibilities involved in the adaptation of the Quijote. The disproportion between the novel's length and the duration of a film is seen as a particularly acute case of a general problem when adopting a novel for the screen. On the other hand, it is suggested that the episodic structure of the base text and the relatively arbitrary order in which it is presented make it possible for the screenwriter to produce a script that is more coherent than its model. One specific challenge of the Quijote consists in transposing the protagonist's view of the world from a linguistic into an audio-visual code. The study brings out that by failing to make use of the possibility to represent the knight's view of events in realistic sequences, most Quijote-films suffer from a semiotic imbalance between the spoken word and the images. A further specific challenge identified is the metaliterary dimension of the novel, which becomes less compelling when transposed into film. Orson Welles' Quijote-fragments are highlighted as an isolated attempt to maintain the playfulness of the literary text. After a brief excursion into trick film adaptations and a statistical overview of the Quijote's presence on the screen, the study concludes by taking a closer look at nine landmark adaptations, commenting on 23 film clips, which are made available through the accompanying video-CD and as part of the free online-publication