Semiotics of narration: Film and prose fiction.

Abstract

The dissertation applies semiotic theory with respect to the relationships and correspondences existing between certain filmic texts and the literary texts on which they were based, focusing on the transfer of narrator's discourse from the printed page to the screen. The semiotic model is applied to two pairs of texts, each pair consisting of one fiction film and one work of prose fiction on which the film is based, namely: (1) Vladimir K. Zeleznikov's "Cucelo" (first published under the title "Vsego-to neskol'ko dnej") (1981) and Roland A. Bykov's Cucelo (1983); and (2) Jurij P. German's story "Lapsin" (1938) and Aleksej Ju. German's film Moj drug Ivan Lapsin (1985). The study examines the semiotic information conveyed in the narration and especially in the narrator's discourse of the literary texts and investigates how this information is conveyed (or not conveyed) and by means of what devices (including lighting, camera-angles, use of color, nature of shots, editing, music and other sound in the soundtrack, visual elements of the background, among others) in the filmic texts. The analysis also considers the filmmakers' approach to visualizing details implied but not specified in the prose text and the addition by the filmmakers of episodes or details neither anticipated nor intended by the creators of the prose fiction texts. The examination of the "transcoding" of the literary text into the medium of film determines whether the filmic text of each pair may best be considered a "translation" or an "adaptation" of the literary text which inspired it. The dissertation concludes with evaluations of each filmmaker's transformation of the literary text, his use of the medium of film to convey messages which may be at variance with those conveyed by the literary text, the aesthetic success or failure of each of the filmic texts on the basis of the filmmaker's approach to the literary text, and the usefulness of this model in such studies.