Abstract
This chapter outlines the stages of adaptations of literary sources for screen and stage. The process of selecting scenes, finding focus, transforming and eliminating characters, and adding scenes is the necessary stages that result in an autonomous discourse that possesses its own logic. Informed by theories of dramaturgy as well as the rules of screenwriting, this section offers the criteria for selecting scenes from The Fortress and transforming its plot and characters into a unique film discourse structured around cinematic characters.
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Notes
- 1.
My translation of the quoted section and further in the text.
- 2.
My translation of the quoted sections and further in the text
- 3.
In the novel, after listening to Ramiz’s arguments—“people will throw off these imposed burdens and cease to deceive themselves by trying to make them seem easier. And the day is coming ever nearer as the burdens grow heavier and as there are fewer words of consolation”—Ahmet questions the outcome of the revolution: “A strange lad. He’d be a fine man as long as he didn’t succeed in his aim—a terrible one were he to succeed. He’d remain proud of his pure ideals even afterward when they’d long been corrupted. Today he was against force, yet he’d bring it to bear in the name of freedom. Today he was for freedom, yet he’d crush it in the name of power” (Selimović 1999, p. 152, 156).
- 4.
Švacov offers an analysis of Shylock in the context of the dramatic character facing an existential situation that “shakes the very foundations of his world” and realising that he “cannot live in a different world”: “[Shylock] realises about himself, and we realise about him that, in his essence, he is neither a miser nor a usurer, but a humiliated man who, despite the consequences, wants to rise and strike at least one—even if innocent—representative of the order that smothers his pride. When realizing he cannot do that, he can no longer want anything else. No compensation can suffice to make up for the loss of that which is everything, namely, the meaning and the goal of existence” (p. 165). (My translation)
- 5.
The Fortress was first time adapted for stage by the Sarajevo National Theatre in 1971. The novel was published in 1970.
- 6.
My translation of the quoted section and further in the text.
- 7.
Semiosis is a communicative process “in which something functions as a sign” (Morris 1938, p. 3).
- 8.
According to Kott, there are three kinds of signs: literal, mimetic, and symbolic: “In a literal sign, the icon and the referent are the same; in the mimetic sign, the icon is an image, an imitation of the referent; in a symbolic sign, ‘the code’ determines the meaning of the icon” (1984, p. 131).
- 9.
Jakobson singled out the poetic function among six other functions of natural language. The poetic function of language is in the message itself: the attention of the participants of the communicative process is focused on the message, the way it is structured (Jakobson 1987, p. 69).
- 10.
“The tempting prospect of applying information theory to the arts and thereby reducing aesthetic form to quantitative measurement has remained largely unrewarding” (Arnheim 1971, p. 18).
- 11.
Moles defines noise as “any undesirable signal in the transmission of a message through a channel, and we use this term … for all types of perturbation, whether the message is sonic or visual.” Above that, Moles distinguishes between signal and noise, concluding that there is no “absolute structural difference between noise and signal,” since they are of “the same nature.” The difference between noise and signal is “based exclusively on the concept of intent on the part of the transmitter. A noise is signal that the sender does not want to transmit” (Moles 1966, pp. 78–79).
- 12.
Simple messages are transmitted “through a single sensory channel …” (Moles 1966, p. 171).
- 13.
Moles establishes the difference between the semantic and the aesthetic part of the message. The semantic information is a “logical, structured, expressible, translatable viewpoint” that “prepares actions,” while the aesthetic information is an “untranslatable viewpoint” that “shapes states of mind” (1966, p. 128).
- 14.
Martin Esslin developed the key sign theory (1987, p. 108), which emphasises the hierarchical ordering of signs in a performance.
- 15.
“This semantic transience is not to be ascribed to the single shot and, obviously, the single frame alone, but also to more complex images, generated by the composition of several shots … since one can only attribute a real meaning to them after having considered the way in which they combine, linguistically and structurally, with all the other parts of the work” (Bettetini 1973, p. 26).
- 16.
Miljenko Jergović (born in Sarajevo in 1966) published the novella Buick Riviera in 2001. He worked with Rušinović on the film adaptation of his book.
- 17.
The latest Computer Generated Imagery technology has profoundly changed the relationship between reality and its representation on screen, to the point that some researchers call for a fundamental change of semiotic theories, or, at least “a rethinking of certain aspects of adaptation theory” and “the expansion of existing theories of adaptation” (Hutcheon 2013, p. 19, 20). Hutcheon also points out that “the forward moving temporal force of film is being replaced by the digital media’s interactive, spatial movement” (p. 18).
- 18.
“Darren Boyd’s ghastly Murdstone is a sinister symphony of hair, eyebrows and teeth” and “Ben Whishaw’s Uriah Heep, a pudding-bowled apparition who creeps through corridors like a cross between Norman Wisdom and Riff-Raff from Rocky Horror—a volatile mix of subservience and defiance; a beaten dog ready to bite” (Kermode 2020).
- 19.
Elam argues that synecdochic substitution, for instance, “the representation of a battlefield by a single tent or of a church by a gothic spire,” ought not to be considered equal to metonymy. Synecdoche is the substitution of pars pro toto, which is essential for theatre. The same principle might be extended to the actors as well, “who represent members of a presumably more extensive society …” Consequently, concludes Elam, the theatrical sign is “by nature synecdochic” (Elam 1988, p. 28).
- 20.
Kracauer affirms that there are certain elements of the film image that the spectator does not perceive due to visual habits and prejudices, conditioned by cultural standards and tradition. Those are blind spots of the mind. They are regarded as elimination processes which leave out certain elements of film image. There are three groups of such elements:
1) unconventional complexes—the viewer follows certain perceptive models, for instance, perceiving whole not the parts of whole, human figure as a whole, disregarding details. But film has recourse to the techniques capable of stressing the elements otherwise disregarded by perceiver. Besides, film techniques are able to elicit certain elements from their common context organising them in a different way.
2) the refuse—the viewer subconsciously refusing to view certain elements of the image, frequently for their negative connotations
3) the familiar—the spectator is inclined not to perceive what is familiar. Film “alienates our environment in exposing it.” By virtue of particular film techniques (camera angle, lenses, etc.) the viewer might be confronted with a familiar object, making it strange. Film image induces decomposition, focusing on details (Kracauer 1960, pp. 53–55).
- 21.
Sol Worth considers film communication as an imperfect semiosis owing to the prevailing discrepancy between the encoding and the decoding processes (1981, p. 49). According to Worth, the inducement for film semiosis is a feeling of concern, which the film director wants to communicate to the addressee. This basic human drive is a desire to relate to certain ideas or beliefs. They are of an amorphous shape, lacking a defined organisation. The next stage is the story-organism where the amorphous desire is conveyed in a more explicit form and is systematically organised. Both stages are inner and abstract. Only when the director starts “to collect the specific external image-events,” in other words, to shoot images and to create sequences by means of montage, does the communication obtain its precise, exterior form. The reception activity is “a mirror image of the making process,” since the spectator’s perception is the opposite of the coding activity (p. 49). Only the central phase of the communication—the image event—is the same for both participants. The addressee has to reconstruct the story organism by virtue of film images, aiming to reach the ideas and beliefs of the addresser who initiated the communication. Thus, the image event becomes a mediating agent to convey the meaning from the source of the message to the receiver. The decoding activity is, according to Worth, influenced by social, psychological, and other external factors.
- 22.
Mahala is a word of Arabic origin and means neighbourhood, but in Bosnian, it has an additional connotation of gossipy and meddling local communities.
- 23.
My translation.
- 24.
The script is from the archive of the Sarajevo National Theatre (my translation of the quoted text).
- 25.
In the novel, the narration assigns a humorous effect to this scene. The dripping rain from Avdaga’s face puts Ahmet at ease because Avdaga, for a moment, looked more human and less monstruous.
- 26.
Sememe is the minimal semantic element (Fr. semes, Eng. semantic feature) (Ducrot and Todorov 1979, p. 265).
- 27.
Clifton distinguishes between several general types of metaphor: (1) metaphor created by simple inclusion in a single frame (the choice of the elements appearing within one frame itself might convey a metaphoric meaning), (2) by means of a specific camera angle or lighting effects, (3) by substitution, namely one film image is substituted for another, where the metaphoric meaning derives from the combination of both images, (4) by the movement of objects or camera movements, (5) by succession or montage, in other words, by juxtaposition of film images included in the metaphoric relationship, (6) by parallel action, (7) by virtue of sound (1983, pp. 86–101).
- 28.
“A good metaphor occurs when the ‘identical’ markers are comparatively peripheral and particularly characteristic of the two sememes in question” (Eco 1976, p. 283).
- 29.
I use metonymy as a general term that includes synecdoche as well. Elam argues that synecdochic substitution, for instance, “the representation of a battlefield by a single tent or of a church by a gothic spire,” ought not be considered equal to metonymy. Synecdoche is the substitution of pars pro toto, which is essential for theatre. The same principle might be extended to the actors as well, “who represent members of a presumably more extensive society …” Consequently, concludes Elam, the theatrical sign is “by nature synecdochic” (Elam 1988, p. 28).
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Garić-Komnenić, S. (2024). Stages of Adaptation. In: Bosnian Literary Adaptations on Stage and Screen. Adaptation in Theatre and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47134-6_3
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