چکیده:
The history of literary adaptation is as long as the history of cinema itself. Given the undeniable fact that literary classics guaranteed a large number of viewers, it is no surprise that the first filmmakers turned to literature to gain their materials for the screen. Since the development of the field called adaptation studies, the relation between cinema and literature has been analyzed through numerous approaches. One of the most recent theories which can shed light on the unstudied interaction between the two sides from new perspective is dialogism as developed by the Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin. The present paper is set to perform a comparative analysis of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and its cinematic adaptation, Biganeh (Stranger), directed by Bahram Tavakoli. The research takes Bakhtin’s notions of unfinalizability and chronotope as two key constituents of dialogism to investigate changes the Iranian director has made in his version of the play. The study found that a literary work is open to changes if the adapter seeks to challenge it in an innovative way. It is in this unfinalized, dialogic process that new meanings are created. Thus, Tavakoli’s film proves that a classic play is both worthy and capable of being adapted for modern audiences if the filmmaker goes beyond common oversimplifications and represents unresolved tensions which lie beneath the veneer of the play.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Tennessee Williams, Iranian Cinema, and Bakhtinian Dialo- gism: A Comparative Study of A Streetcar Named Desire and Biganeh 1 Afsaneh Asghari Astaneh2 Behzad Pourgharib*3 Abdolbaghi Rezaei Talar Poshti4 Received: 2019-06-22 | Revised: 2019-10-19 | Accepted: 2019-11-09 Abstract The history of literary adaptation is as long as the history of cinema itself.
The present paper is set to perform a comparative analysis of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and its cinemat- ic adaptation, Biganeh (Stranger), directed by Bahram Tavakoli.
Keywords: Dialogism, Adaptation studies, A Streetcar Named Desire, Biganeh, Unfinalizability, Chronotope Introduction Adaptation and its related areas of translation and intertextuality continue to have a central place in literary studies as they connect literature with other areas of study.
Informed by such a paucity of academic information, this research sought to apply, in a dialogic analysis, Bakhtin’s concepts of unfinalizability and chronotope to a comparative study of Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) and its Iranian adapta- tion, Biganeh (Stranger) (2014).
Ending on the Chronotope of Threshold As mentioned above, the film adaptation of Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire ends with Nasrin walking away alone.
The question here is what lies behind Tavakoli’s decision to change Williams’ ending and think of a new one for his adaptation of the play?
In Tavakoli’s adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire, the matrix of temporal and spatial elements plays a key role in the nar- rative and in indispensable in our understanding of the movie.