Intertextuality Discourse, Advantages and Limitations

The gap in the study of adaptation in the enforced absence of fidelity was bound to be occupied by attempts at a new theoretical approach. The new context on the view of the interaction between the media came in the form of intertextuality. More of a theoretical approach, rather than a concrete theory, intertextuality originated in literature studies as the examination of texts in conjunction with their precursors in terms of interaction rather than influence. This approach was bound to take the next step into the examination of interactions between different media and therefore it was organically applied to adaptation. The first surge of intertextual ideas in the field of adaptation came as an attack on fidelity with the French New Wave and its dismissal of the “Tradition of Quality”. As James Naremore points out in his essay “Film and the Reign of Adaptation”, “they made sure that the auteur would seem more important than the author” (Naremore 2000, p.6). So even in the fifties, the tendency existed to focus on the creative process, rather than the source. It took some

more time for academia to examine the theoretical implications suggested by the New Wave. It is important to note that the New Wave was not attacking the practice of adaptation in general, but a specific approach to it. Rick Warner makes that point: “Godard’s own views notwithstanding, I want to suggest that he is actually among the most prolific ‘adapters’ in cinema, and that adaptation plays a critical role in his still evolving practice as a multimedia montage artist” (Warner 2011, p.196). Also, Truffaut, in his essay manifesto “A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema” was not opposing the notion of fidelity. Erica Sheen points out that Truffaut seems to suggest that “when the process of writing is undertaken from the standpoint of a personal commitment to film rather than a cynical professional negotiation of an individual system of production, fidelity manifests itself as a positive rather than negative value within filmmaking” (Sheen 2013, p.249). It could be argued that the New Wave produced a rather complex practice of adaptation, opening the field creatively and intertextually but not dismissing the concept of the source. MacCabe suggests that “Bazin and Truffaut’s fidelity ... made film and novel combine to produce an ‘ideal construct’ greater than the sum of its parts” (MacCabe 2011, p.7). Rick Warner describes Godard’s method in a manner that is relative to the approach of this thesis, as reworking of possibilities. “Godard opens the original and brings it into an ‘always taking place’. He samples, modulates, re-adapts, not repeating the original as it was but reworking the conditions of possibility attached to it” (Warner 2011, p.203). Linda Costanzo Cahir, observes Godard as well and addresses the issue of interpretation and fidelity. “For Godard, originality invariably enters the moment someone begins reading the literature; and the unavoidably original way in which one reads a text affects how one translates the work into film and affects one’s notions of faithfulness” (Cahir 2008, p.199).

Today, the general consensus among adaptation scholars is that an intertextual approach is much more productive and better equipped to deal with the intricacies of the subject. Its broader scope allows for a more complex examination of the connections between the media. A film is now

approached not as a transfer of elements from another, singular work but as a collection of references, allusions, distortions and loans from a variety of texts. The potential of such an approach has been pointed out by most of the academics in the field of adaptation. Robert Stam in the essay “The Theory and Practice of Adaptation in Literature and Film” (Stam 2005, p.1-52), describes the fruitful examination of the interaction between literary and filmic genres. He bases his approach on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism and Gerard Genette’s theory of transtextuality, a general framework that incorporates intertextuality. “Notions of ‘dialogism’ and ‘intertextuality’, then, help us transcend the aporias of ‘fidelity’ and of a dyadic source/adaptation model which excludes not only all sorts of supplementary texts but also the dialogical response of the reader/spectator. Every text, and every adaptation, ‘points’ in many directions, back, forward, and sideways” (Stam 2005, p.27). Stam also points out that this approach stems from larger theoretical movements: structuralism that set all signifying practices on the same level of texts, and post-structuralism that dethroned the author as the sole originator of the work. Brian McFarlane in Novel to Film, discussing intertextuality, poses the original work as a “resource” and cites Christopher Orr: “Within this critical context, the issue is not whether the adapted film is faithful to its source, but rather how the choice of a specific source and how the approach to that source serve the film’s ideology” (cited in McFarlane 1996, p.10).

Another aspect of the application of ideas of intertextuality on adaptation is that of contextualisation. While the previous discussions focused on interactions between texts, this one takes into account the influence of the socio-historical environment on the process. In the spirit of Bakhtin’s notions of situated utterances, texts seen in the context of their specific time and place, this branch studies adaptations as manifestations of the socio-historical differences between the various incarnations of a text. An adaptation of a classic work offers insight not only on the author’s time but also on the adapter’s own. The new work clarifies not only the author’s viewpoint on his

environment but also the modern viewpoint on that viewpoint. Linda Hutcheon’s view of adaptation as an evolutionary process follows that path. In A Theory of Adaptation, she claims that “Like evolutionary natural selection, cultural selection is a way to account for the adaptive organisation, in this case, of narratives. Like living beings, stories that adapt better than others (through mutation) to an environment survive” (Hutcheon 2013, p.167). Darlene J. Sadlier in the essay “The Politics of Adaptation” (Sadlier 2000, p.190-205), points out adaptation’s capacity for comment through a portrayal of what the text omits rather than what it says.

The discursive potential of the turn to intertextuality is significant. Nevertheless, it could also be argued that a universal application on the subject of adaptation contains certain conceptual pitfalls. The view of this thesis is that the attack on fidelity can go too far. There is a limit to the devaluation of the original work, after which a discussion of adaptation becomes irrelevant. Rachel Carroll argues that “one implicit, and rather paradoxical, effect of this strategy is to seem to argue for the abolition of adaptation or remake studies as such, but to do so by suggesting that in some fundamental way all cultural forms are themselves ‘remade’ or ‘adapted’ ” (Carroll 2009, p.35). This thesis will argue that there is value in the examination of the adapter’s engagement with a specific text.

An objection that can be raised against the reliance on intertextuality as the sole theoretical background for adaptation is its one-sidedness. While the focus on the interaction between texts gives great opportunities in the discussions of existing works, it is not as readily helpful in the discussion of the creative process in relation to the source. While the search for clues of previous works in a film is an intriguing enterprise, the reverse side of the study is often neglected. The process of adaptation poses a number of issues, such as a definition of the modes of engagement with a text, an examination of the elements of the text in terms of their transpositional potential, or

the formulations of methods for the interrogation of the text. These are issues that an examination based solely on principles of intertextuality cannot address in a satisfactory manner. In the view of this thesis, a purely intertextual approach can serve adaptation criticism up to a point but cannot produce a theory of adaptation.

Kamilla Elliott makes a point of refusing to accept the term “text” in its general meaning as inclusive of all signifying practices: “Once films are decreed ‘texts’ in a literal rather than analogical sense they become subject to textual evaluations and textual concerns” (Elliott 2003, p.28). She points out that this generalisation, which originated in literature studies implies a priority of the verbal element and she believes that this is not a good basis for a study of adaptation. Although a careful use of the term could solve that problem, Elliott makes a valid point. Theories of intertextuality originated with verbal systems of reference. Although their scope seems wide enough to incorporate different media one might wonder if it is wise to carry those theories over into adaptation without a filter. It would be short-sighted to apply modern literary theories on adaptation without conforming them to the object of the study. “Rather than solely adapting adaptation to theories, theories also need to adapt to adaptations” (Elliott 2013, p.32). Intertextuality is a very wide area of study and it is comprised of different, and contradictory branches and applications. Before it can be applied to adaptation it needs to be examined, in the same manner as fidelity, in terms of its specific parameters in the field. This will also take place in the second chapter.