Filmmaking by the Book: Italian Cinema and Literary Adaptation

by Millicent Marcus

Overview

What is the impulse to transform literary narrative into cinematic discourse, and what are the factors that determine that transformation? In Filmmaking by the Book, Millicent Marcus considers the adaptive process as the sum total of a series of encounters: the institutional encounter between literary and film cultures, the semiotic encounter between two very different signifying systems, and the personal encounter between author and filmmaker—sometimes involving an overt Oedipal struggle for selfhood.

Marcus explores that process by looking at key works by such major postwar Italian filmmakers as Visconti, De Sica, Pasolini, Fellini, and the Taviani brothers. Drawing on the methodologies of semiotics, psychoanalysis, feminism, and ideological criticism, she finds that cinematic imaginations typically employ literary texts self-consciously to resolve specific artistic problems. Each of the filmmakers studied here define their own authorial task in relation to that of the literary precursor, and insert "umbilical" scenes or "allegories of adaptation" to teach viewers how to read their cinematic rewriting of literary sources.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801844553
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	12/01/1992
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.73(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Millicent Marcus is Mariano DiVito Professor of Italian Studies in the Department of Romance Languages and Director of the Center of Italian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Literature and Filme: Negotiating the Terms
Chapter 1. Visonti's La terra trema: The Typology of Adaptation
Chapter 2. Visonti's Leopard: The Politics of Adaptation
Chapter 3. De Sica's Two Women: Realigning the Gaze
Chapter 4. De Sica's Garden of the Finzi-Continis: An Escapist Paradise Lost
Chapter 5. Pasolini's Gospel According to St. Matthew: The Gaze of Faith
Chapter 6. Pasolini's Decameron: Writing With Bodies
Chapter 7. The Tavianis' Padre padrone: The Critical Acquisition of Codes
Chapter 8. The Tavianis' Kaos: The Poetics of Adaptation
Chapter 9. Fellini's Casanova: Adaptation by Self-Projection
Chapter 10. Fellini's La voce della luna: Resisting Postmodernism
Appendix: Film Synopsis and Credits
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

Marcus' approach to her subject is extremely interesting. The result is a challenging book, packed full of new and original ideas . . . It is exciting, and it confirms Marcus' reputation as one of the most innovative Italianists working today.
—Italian Studies

An important and original book that breaks new ground and provides compelling interpretations of Italy's most important directors and their experiences with adaptations of literary works.
—Peter Bondanella, MLN

From the Publisher

An important and original book that breaks new ground and provides compelling interpretations of Italy's most important directors and their experiences with adaptations of literary works.

— Peter Bondanella

MLN

An important and original book that breaks new ground and provides compelling interpretations of Italy's most important directors and their experiences with adaptations of literary works.

MLN - Peter Bondanella

Marcus' approach to her subject is extremely interesting. The result is a challenging book, packed full of new and original ideas... It is exciting, and it confirms Marcus' reputation as one of the most innovative Italianists working today.

Italian Studies