When Stories Travel: Cross-Cultural Encounters between Fiction and Film

288 Pages·2012·3.718 MB·English

by  Cristina Della Coletta

When Stories Travel
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When Stories Travel
Cross-Cultural Encounters
between Fiction and Film
Cristina Della Coletta
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2012
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
www.press.jhu.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Della Coletta, Cristina, 1962–
When stories travel : cross-cultural encounters between
fi ction and fi lm / Cristina Della Coletta.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-0365-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4214-0365-X (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Film adaptations—History and criticism. 2. Motion
pictures and literature. 3. Hermeneutics. I. Title.
PN1997.85.C65 2012
791.43(cid:2)6—dc23 2011024412
A catalog record for this book is available from the British
Library.
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composed of at least 30 percent post-consumer waste, whenever
possible.
To Alexander and Stephanie
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Note to the Reader xi
Introduction 1
1 “Fear Death by Water”: The Postman Always Rings Twice
and the Frauds of Memory 25
2 Myth in the Mirror of History: The Rules of Fate and
the Responsibilities of Choice in Visconti’s Ossessione 44
3 Grotesque Doublings and the Dangers of the Sublime:
Poe’s “Never Bet the Devil Your Head” 67
4 Fellini’s “Unoriginal” Scripts: The Creative Power of
the Grotesque 87
5 India through the Looking Glass: The Narrative Heritage
of the West and Antonio Tabucchi’s Notturno indiano 109
6 “A Cinema of Quotations”: Nocturne indien; or, How
Alain Corneau Filmed Antonio Tabucchi’s “Night” 123
7 The Writer in the Looking Glass: Jorge Luis Borges’s
“Tema del traidor y del héroe” and the Ambivalences of
the Uncanny 145
8 From Icon to Simulacrum: Bertolucci’s La strategia del
ragno and the Urban Labyrinths of the Uncanny 162
Afterword 196
Notes 201
Bibliography 245
Index 263
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Acknowledgments
A study of considerable comparative breadth, encompassing Italian, French,
American, and Argentine cultures and involving forays into nineteenth-
century German music, Italian Renaissance architecture, and contemporary
American painting, would be overly ambitious without sustained conversa-
tions with and expert input of colleagues in numerous disciplines. I especially
thank Stefania Lucamante, John Lyons, Benjamin K. Bennett, Donal Shaw,
Michael Puri, and Daniel Chávez. The title of my book is an homage to, and a
borrowing from, Linda Hutcheon’s A Theory of Adaptation, a chapter of which
is devoted to the “when and where” of adaptation, that is, to the “explora-
tion of what can happen when stories ‘travel’ ” (xvi). Dorothe Bach’s, Marva
Barnett’s, Stéphanie Bérard’s, Gustavo Pellón’s, and John F. Miller’s linguis-
tic skills were invaluable to my exploration of German, French, Spanish, and
Latin texts.
I express gratitude to the University of Virginia’s Offi ce of the Vice Provost
for Faculty Advancement and Teaching Resource Center for granting me a
Professors as Writers Grant (2006–7) and to the Vice President of Research
and Graduate Studies and the College of Arts and Sciences for funding several
research trips to Italy.
My warmest thanks go to the Johns Hopkins University Press, especially
Matthew McAdam and Trevor C. Lipscombe. I am deeply indebted to the
outside reader solicited by the press, whose insightful and generous feedback
transformed this book in a substantial way.
This volume could not have been written without the students who, for
the past eleven years, attended my two fi lm courses at the University of Vir-
ginia: “Fiction into Film: The Craft of Adaptation” and “One Hundred Years
of Italian History through Film: 1860–1960.” Their ability to tackle complex
theoretical problems and bring fresh perspectives to class discussions moti-
vated me more than any other aspect of my academic experience. A special
thanks goes to the Teaching and Technology Initiative team at the University