Martino, Mariarita (2011) An analysis of scopophilia in an intersemiotic context : four Italian film adaptations. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

Abstract

The thesis contributes to the current debate in the fields of adaptation studies and intersemiotic translation. Recent critical stances invite the re-evaluation of the traditional hierarchy which subordinates the target text to its original, and promote a description-oriented textual analysis of a key issue which is common to the texts involved in the adaptation process. By considering the relationship between literature and cinema, the present thesis explores scopophilia, or the love for looking at sexually stimulating scenes, as a key issue in the textual analysis of intersemiotic translation in four significant novels adapted to Italian cinema. Specifically, to put them in the order of the chapters, the thesis analyses scopophilia in Alberto Moravia’s L’uomo che guarda (1985) and the Italian translation of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s novel La chiave (1956), two literary works adapted to cinema by the Italian director of erotic cinema Tinto Brass (in 1994 and 1983 respectively), and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema (1968) and Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (c. 1350-53), adapted for the screen by Pasolini himself (in 1968 and 1971 respectively). The case studies tackle issues related to adaptation of novels to films, but also issues concerned with the erotic, control and discovery, as well as other psychoanalytic notions which are related to scopophilia (e.g. sexual fetishism, Oedipus complex).

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