A hora e a vez de Augusto Matraga: do universo rosiano à adaptação fílmica de Vinícius Coimbra

Abstract

This research concerns with comparative literature, aiming at understanding traits of the adaptation process. Therefore, we analyze the film A hora e a vez de Augusto Matraga (2015) by Vinícius Coimbra, adapted from the homonyms short story by Guimarães Rosa (1945), in the light of a comparative dialogue in order to elucidate the filmic construction from the transposition of one semiotic system to another, based on the theoretical studies by André Bazin (1991/2018), Luis Buñuel (1983), Sylvie Debs (2010), Thaís Flores Diniz (1998/2005), Linda Hutcheon (2013), Marcelo Ikeda (2012/2019), Marcel Martin (2013), Christian Metz (2006), Robert Stam (1981/2006/2008), Joseph Campbell (1995), among others. We aim at analyzing the adaptation process from short story to film, observing the processes of equivalence between their languages, looking forward to understanding their temporal discursive distinctions. Our hypothesis is that the adaptation process is wide and complex, it does not take into account only a transposition of languages, it goes through a broad procedure of structural, ideological and symbolic connection. From this perspective, we perceive that the context of production of both works infers directly to their discursive construction, considering that the aesthetics is pertinent to what is proposed according to the time of production, thus, there is commercial appeal in Coimbra’s film, in accordance with the cinematic domain in contemporaneity; in this sense, we find out that the ideology present in the film refers to the audience expectations, through which there is still an approximation with the literary text, without abrupt transformations, in contrast to what it is observed in Roberto Santos’s adaptation (1965); as a result, we also find out that the director proposes following the hero archetype, based on the development of the short story, triggering a heroic journey to the protagonist, ascending the symbology of the myth. That said, it is important to observe that a literary work is open to different interpretations, rendering the adaptation as an act of reproduction and connection of cultures, producing dialogues under different ideologies, rising discussions about society and individual conflicts.