Literatura e cinema: diálogo, tradução e recriação em Terra Estrangeira e em Abril Despedaçado, de Walter Salles

Abstract

This study investigates the connection between Literature and Cinema, focusing on the semiotic interaction observed in the Brazilian director Walter Salles‟s films Terra Estrangeira (1995) e Abril Despedaçado (2001). These films have different themes, time and space however their narrative converge in the dialog with classics or works of universal literary expression. In Terra Estrangeira the interaction appears as quotation and allusion, while in Abril Despedaçado, professedly based on a literary work, this dialogical relationship seems to be not restricted to a simple transposition of book to screen. In fact, it seems to be the starting point to a new creation in other semiotic system. Thus, they follow two different processes, whose investigation increases the traditional way of studying the relationship between Literature and Cinema that is based only on the usual process named adaptation. On the point, it was necessary a combination of theoretical resources. First, it applies the Comparative Literary Studies. Here it is seen as a critical approach by which an interdisciplinary research gives support to make comparison between different arts, from different origins and time, aiming to amplify the investigation possibilities on the questions related to literary studies. Second, it applies the critical theoretical perspective of the Sociological Stylistic proposed by Bakhtin`s philosophy of language and, the Charles Sanders Peirce‟s Semiotic (general theory of signs) and its unfolding. These theories offer effective instruments for literary narratives analysis as well as for visual narratives analysis. So, a detailed examination of literary and filmic narratives afforded the comprehension of the role of quotations, allusions or references to literary works that were observed in Terra Estrangeira, and it searches to understand the mechanism of intersemiotic translation of Ismail Kadaré‟s work Abril Despedaçado into film. As the investigation result, it was understood how important the identification of semiotic interactions with literature in filmic narrative is, in order to help the construction of a meaning by spectators; and, how it is important to the comprehension of the creative process in these films, which were seen in this study as a re-creation of precedent literary works.