rosario.

Rosario Tijeras by Jorge Franco was an easier read than some of the other books covered in this course. While it dealt with ‘gritty’ topics such as drugs, gunplay, and sex for money, there were not the different ‘tracks’ (as outlined by Stam) at work—as in the novels Money to Burn and Pantoja. A complexity of this novel, however, is its chronology and how that affects the story on the whole.

While it is narrated over the course of a single night, while Antonio is in the hospital after Rosario is shot, he sinks into memories of the time he spent with her and his best friend Emillio. It is unclear when he is narrating—either as he is in the hospital or after. There is evidence to support both, however as he claims from the beginning that Rosario does not survive, I believe the latter. Additionally, his flashbacks are only roughly in order—he does jump around a bit. These aspects of the book, though they made for interesting reading, make me wonder about the film adaptation. Because we know from the beginning that Rosairo is dead, there is not the climax of finding out whether or not she will survive. There is no other major climax in the story otherwise. Also, flashbacks lend themselves to film, however does the fact that these are out of order matter? I wonder what the director of the film will do with it—will he rearrange Antonio’s memories? Will he create a climax?

same ingredients, different outcome.

The most problematic part of Marcelo Piñeyro’s film adaptation of Piglia’s novel Money to Burn, titled Burnt Money, was his treatment of the relationship between The Twins. Aside from looking alike, the characters of Nene and Angel were actually separated throughout the movie by their emotions, as they each took turns playing the part of the jilted lover. First Nene was upset because Angel no longer wanted a physical relationship (though he never explains his new found religious motives to Nene and Nene never asks). Later, Angel is nearly pushed over the edge at his discovery that Nene has been having an affair with Giselle. The movie therefore focused on the pair as lovers rather than friends.


In the book it was quite the opposite. The Twins were friends first. In fact, more than friends, as they functioned together like one person. Dorda’s illness (hearing voices) is not something that has just recently developed; it is what makes him the physical entity of The Twins, while The Kid takes care of the mental. True, there was a physical relationship, but the book dismissed it as something that happens but hasn’t for a while. Additionally, Dorda’s belief that semen is sacred is long-held and does not inhibit the physical relations between the men. Neither The Kid nor Dorda seem concerned by the fact that they have not slept together in a while—it is not what their relationship is based on. Additionally, The Kid’s short and mainly physical relations with the girl did not affect Dorda. While the movie incorporated these details from the novel, Piñeyro skewed them to reach a different end.

trying to find a connection.

After all, what is robbing a bank compared to founding one?
Bertolt Brecht

This quote is the epigraph to Ricardo Piglia’s novel Money To Burn. Though we briefly discussed Brecht’s words in class, my own feelings around it are a bit different. My immediate thought after reading this was culpability—that criminals and the established order are equally culpable for their actions and that all those actions are not that different from one another. No group is free from dirt.

It’s probable that I’ve been taken in this direction for two reasons. First, I am unfamiliar with Brecht’s work. Second, a quote in the novel is very similar to an excerpt from the book I read immediately before: Norman Mailer’s Miami and the Siege of Chicago. In Mailer’s work of nonfiction, he details the 1968 Presidential Conventions. That of the Democrats took place in Chicago and was marked by protests against the Vietnam War, which resulted in extreme violence on the part of the Chicago Police Force. Regardless, the two quotes that resonated are these:

“They know they are lucky; they know they are getting away with a successful solution to the criminality they can taste in their blood.” Miami and the Siege of Chicago, Norman Mailer (174)

“The police always act in the conviction that the gunmen behave just like themselves, meaning that gangsters have the same unstable sense of balance when it comes to taking decisions or precautions as does the common man to whom a uniform—representing authority—has been handed, along with a weapon and the power to use it.” Money to Burn, Ricardo Piglia, (144)

Though the circumstances relayed in each book are quite different, the sentiment is the same: there is no clear line between good and bad, in fact the similarities between different sides can be astounding. It’s very possible that because these quotes reminded me of each other, I’m reaching to make them fit both with each other and with Piglia’s epigraph. Nonetheless, I see a connection there.

Pantoja vs. Pantoja

As Juan commented on my last post, Llosa’s novel fits well with Stam’s idea of multiple tracks. I find it interesting that though Stam was referring to the advantages of filmmaking, it is the written form of Captain Pantoja that is more interesting and tack-filled, rather than Francisco Lombardi’s film adaptation.

As I mentioned before, the novel has several scenes layered together in the more straightforward narrative sections, as well as letters and reports. Additionally, there is a radio show transcript. Though all of these things are only experienced through the written word, Llosa is still achieving a story through different mediums. On the other hand, Lombardi’s film does not seek replicate this. At one point a report is dubbed over the film and the film has sound, of course, but there was much less drive to push the medium of film.

I think a possible reason for this is Lombardi’s desire to create films in the “American Style.” This would explain his emphasis on the movie’s visual aspects (bright colors, beautiful women) and the love story, rather than the complications and nuances of the story itself. Overall, Lombardi’s film seemed more like a Romantic Comedy (with hints of tragedy) than a fitting adaptation of a Llosa novel.

narrating Pantoja.

In her blog on a the same subject, Katrina Sinno describes Captain Pantoja and the Special Service by Mario Vargas Llosa as complicated, “I was distracted with the format and what felt like interruptions in letters.” I completely understand this feeling. As Sinno points out, the interruptions help fill out the story’s details, however it can be difficult to adjust from one writing form to another. I believe, however, that once one understands that this story be told through different narratives (similar to Bram Stoker’s Dracula) this aspect of the book is easier to cope with than the jump from scene to scene within the more traditional third-person narrative portions of the novel.

From one paragraph to the next, the scenes jump in time, setting, and swap characters. This is almost cinematic in an extreme way—constant montages or cutting from scene to scene without notice. As the novel begins this way, I found it difficult to get my bearings. By the middle of the novel, I began to actually appreciate this style. Around page 100, the switches between Pantoja with the Brazilian and his wife and mother talking helped build the tension between his two lives. Also, if an interaction is referenced, it is often the scene of the next paragraph, which further explains relationships and scenarios. I’m not sure I’m completely behind this way of storytelling yet, but I am able to see its benefits.

kiss of the spider woman: 1985.

One of the main points of contention in the 1985 film adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman is the character of Molina. Manuel Puig was displeased with William Hurt’s portrayal, and I have to admit that I agree. While I think Hurt did a fine job, the casting itself was wrong.

The back of Puig’s novel describes Molina as “older”. This works in the text because it gives the character further vulnerability: not only is he gay, he is getting older and his years for fulfilling dreams, living his own life, and finding love are numbered. I believe this vulnerability helps trigger Valentin’s desire to be with Molina, as if to take care of him in some way. Additionally, having Molina be an older character would have his maternal instincts towards his waiter friend and Valentin make sense. He fantasizes about the waiter coming to live with him and his mother so he can take care of him. He nurtures Valentin during his illness. This instinct of Molina’s struck me as being more of a mother-child relationship than friends or lovers.

William Hurt is simply too young in the movie to add this complexity to the character. He is vibrant, seemingly in the best years of his life—walking in his gold jacket with pride.

kiss of the spider woman--inside out.

Going back over Kiss of the Spider Woman, I noticed a commonality in some of the excerpts I underlined, two in particular:

“…she’s all wrapped up in herself, lost in that world she carries inside her, that she’s just beginning to discover,” (4)

In regards to Molina’s mother: “But she’s got the danger inside, she carries the enemy around inside, it’s that weak heart if hers,” (36)

The first refers to the panther woman in the first movie Molina relays to Valentin. In many ways, when he describes the woman in the film, he actually describes himself. Due to his homosexuality, he has felt like an outsider, he has to discover (or cultivate) the person he is internally. The blank cell gives him an opportunity to truly be himself, it is like an extension of self for both the cellmates because there is nothing there but them.

The second quote is in regards to Molina’s mother and her heart condition. While it is meant in a literal sense—that the danger is in her heart condition—there is still the concept of internality to the quote.

I think this can be seen as another theme within the text—or another concept worth exploring, at least. The internal life of the character. The structure of the novel excludes thoughts, however it hints at the insides being important to a person’s self. It will be interesting to see if this is acknowledged in the film version, or even if others agree with me about its presence in the text.

developing underdeveloment.

It would be an understatement to call Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s movie Memories of Underdevelopment complicated—there is so much at play in the film. It makes an issue of intelligence, class, revolution, internal struggles, age, gender, etc. In addition, Alea stretches the boundaries of filmmaking itself through the movie. By this, I am referring to the addition of documentary film footage, which is narrated by the protagonist, Sergio. While Desnoes’s story (on which the film is based) is fiction, the Cuban Revolution is obviously a very real part of history. By using documentary footage, Alea is bringing his viewers’ attention to that fact. The film at hand is not simply one about a man’s midlife crisis; it is the crisis of a culture in turmoil. That being said, Sergio’s narrations of both the fictional and nonfiction portions of the movie serve to blur the lines between fact and fiction in terms of the movie in its entirety. While I never actually questioned what was real and what was not, I was engaged with the movie in a different way than if it had been done entirely in one form or the other.

While Alea used the documentary footage to accentuate the meaning of the movie, he manipulated the film to reinforce smaller details as well. In the Elena section of the movie, there is a few scenes or actions that get repeated several times, one after another. For example, there is a man thrusting himself onto a woman at the beach and a backview of Sergio’s wife stepping into the shower. What is Alea getting at with these? I believe he is stating that the sexual charge of this story is not to be ignored, despite the heavier topics at hand.

memories of underdevelopment: an introduction.

In reading the entirety of Memories of Underdevelopment further, I was happy to see that my question regarding how Desnoes’s first-person narrative would be translated to the screen was almost immediately answered in Michael Chanan’s Introduction (this also grows off of Rachel’s comment on my previous post). First, Chanan words my question much more eloquently. He writes, “How can you translate the first person of the narrator to the screen as more than a conceit? The convention of the voice on soundtrack is logically not the same; in film, there is no true equivalent of the first-person narrator in literature, for the camera as an analogue of the writer’s pen is impersonal: it cannot say ‘I’; it always says ‘there is,’ ‘here is.’”(4).

Well, it seems that, in making the film, Tomas Gutierrez Alea pushes the form of film, as Desnoes seems to be pushing the form of literature. While Desnoes’s protagonist refers to his typewriter and journal as tools to tell his story, Alea uses documentary footage and unscripted scenes. I suppose when I proposed my original question, I was thinking about taking the story to the screen in more of a purely adaptive way. Though Chanan’s explanation of the filmmaking process shows me the consideration for mechanics that Alea had and how he made them fit his medium.

inconsolable memories.

I’ve found reading Inconsolable Memories by Edmundo Desnoes to be both a frustrating and interesting process. My frustration does not stem from the style of writing or the story itself, more from the narrator as a character. Through his false hatred of others and self-contradiction, it is clear that he is trying to find himself in some way or another (perhaps forget the person he believes himself to have become). However, for most of his writing (more so in the first half of the piece), he is nearly absent from the page. Obviously it is him who is writing, so as a reader I understand how his mind works. But as far as what made him who he was or what he was like outside of writing, I found myself grasping for things I could pin down as facts.

More of a linear narrative comes to the story when the narrator begins tracing the time from school forward, and I really appreciated that. I also found myself liking that this had come later in the story. This brings me to what I found interesting about the story. In going with the theme of our class (adaptation), I often thought about how this piece would translate to film.

I suppose it is obvious that the narrator would be seen by viewers from the very beginning. While this would take away the frustration I felt while reading, something essential to the story might also be lost. In addition, much of the piece is about the act of writing, of keeping a diary, retracing memories, going where the mind leads you, etc. Filmic flashbacks might not capture this in the way Desnoes’s writing has.

a little of this and a little of that.

Although it is only about three pages long, there is quite a bit at work in JL Borges’s “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero”. The narrator of the story is actually an author describing the construction of a separate story. The story he is describing is, I believe, fairly complicated in that it has history repeat history and, in a deliberate way, art.

While I am interested in discussing the mechanics of the story itself, the interview with Bernardi Bertolucci regarding his film The Spider’s Strategem brings up so much about the concept of adaptation that I would rather address that here. While his film was inspired by Borges’s story, he says: “The mechanism is very similar to that used by Borges but I’m not so focused on his very Borgesian reflection of the cyclical nature of things. The theme of the film is this sort of voyage into the realm of the dead,” (52). Bertolucci seems to have taken the plot that Borges set forth and has given it a new focus. He also uses the influences of painters Ligabue and Magritte, as well as American culture (Tera from Gone With the Wind). It could be said that he is adapting all of these art forms (painting, writing, etc) into his own work. It is probably best to use Dudley Andrew’s term “borrowing” for this sort of adaptation. At least, this is how it seems before watching the movie.

In addition, Bertolucci’s interviewer points out that the film DOES contain a cyclical return to things (as the Borges story does). The filmmaker claims this is simply because he was not in a period of neurosis while making the film (60). I wonder about this as well… is it possible to be inspired by “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero” without cyclical-ness?

prospective on peavler.

I greatly appreciate Terry J. Peavler’s article “Blow-up: A Reconsideration of Antonioni’s Infidelity to Cortázar” if only for the reason that he nicely summarizes the Antonioni/Crotazar debate until that point. It’s good in that “there’s no sense of reinventing the wheel” sort of way… We can take what he has gathered together and spring off of it.

Peavler also set me at ease as far as my understanding (or lack there of) of Cortázar’s short story. I originally came away from the story wanting to debate whether or not the narrator actually saw a crime take place, more basically what it was the narrator saw at all. After our class discussion, I was worried I might have missed something---that didn’t seem to be a point of interest. Maybe the situation is more cut and dry than I had believed? Peavler reassured me, however, by stating: “As if matters were not already complicated enough, our hypothetical reader-viewer can find no where to turn for help in his comparative analysis, for it is difficult, if not impossible, to find two readers, or two viewers, who concur on what happens either in the story or in the film, much less come to an agreement on what, if anything, it all means. The single best example of ambiguity in each work is the crime that seems so central to the plot.” P888.

With that said, where does this leave us in terms of adaptation and Antonioni’s film? Though I have yet to see the film, Peavler’s explanation of the relationship between the two gives me the impression that their connection is far more fascinating, artistically, than a straight adaptation would present. I like to think about artists being inspired by each other across mediums. It seems as though Antonioni might have wanted to capture some of Cortázar’s essence and was appreciative enough of its existence to state that fact out loud. I don’t think it gets much better than this line in the last paragraph of Peavler’s article: “But Antonioi continues to wink at Cortázar, and Cortázar at Antonioni.” What a great explanation of the whole situation--- and image.

Introduction.

This is my first (test) post for Juan De Castro's class: Screening Latin American Novel and Short Story.

Course Description:
This course studies how Latin American literary works have been transformed into film not only in the region, but also in Europe and the United States. In addition to studying the manner in which the different cultural contexts have impacted these film adaptations, we analyze the differences between cinematic and literary narrative, theories of film adaptation, and the integration of cinematic techniques into literary texts. Some of the theorists read in the course are Serdei Eisenstein, Andre Bazin, and James Naremore. Among the novels and short stories analyzed may be texts by Jorges Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, Edmundo Desnoes, and Mario Vargas Llosa. The films studied include Bernardo Bertolucci's The Spider Stratagem's, Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup, and Francisco Lombardi's Captain Pantoja and the Special Service.