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.