Border Crossing Russian Literature into Film

by Burry, Alexander; White, Frederick

• ISBN13: 9781474411424
• ISBN10: 1474411428
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2016-04-01
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Summary

Each time a border is crossed there are cultural, political, and social issues to be considered. Applying the metaphor of the 'border crossing' from one temporal or spatial territory into another, Border Crossing: Russian Literature into Film examines the way classic Russian texts have been altered to suit new cinematic environments.

In these essays, international scholars examine how political and economic circumstances, from a shifting Soviet political landscape to the perceived demands of American and European markets, have played a crucial role in dictating how filmmakers transpose their cinematic hypertext into a new environment. Rather than focus on the degree of accuracy or fidelity with which these films address their originating texts, this innovative collection explores the role of ideological, political, and other cultural pressures that can affect the transformation of literary narratives into cinematic offerings.

Author Biography

Alexander Burry is an Associate Professor at the Ohio State University. He is the author of Multi-Mediated Dostoevsky: Transposing Novels into Opera, Film, and Drama (2011).

Frederick H. White is Professor in the Department of Languages and Cultures at Utah Valley University. He has published two books on the Russian writer Leonid Andreev; co-edited a selection of essays on the Russian avant-garde; and is the co-author of Marketing Literature and Posthumous Legacies: The Symbolic Capital of Leonid Andreev and Vladimir Nabokov (2013)

Table of Contents

Introduction: Filming Russian Classics: Challenges and Opportunities, Alexander Burry
Passport Control: Across the Russian Border, Thomas Leitch
White Nights (1844): Dostoevsky's White Nights: The Dreamer Goes Abroad, Ronald Meyer
Crime and Punishment (1866): On Not Showing Dostoevsky: Robert Bresson's Pickpocket, Olga Hasty
Stealing the Scene: Crime as Confession in Robert Bresson's Pickpocket, S. Ceilidh Orr
Anna Karenina (1878): The Eye-deology of Trauma: Killing Anna Karenina Softly, Yuri Leving
Ward No. 6 (1892): A Vicious Circle: Karen Shakhnazarov's Ward no. 6, Alexander Burry
He Who Gets Slapped (1915): A Slap in the Face of American Taste: Transporting He Who Gets Slapped to American Audiences, Frederick H. White
Lieutenant Kijé (1928): Against Adaptation? The Strange Case of (Pod)Poruchik Kizhe, Alastair Renfrew
The Twelve Chairs (1928): Chasing the Wealth: The Americanization of Il'f and Petrov's The Twelve Chairs, Robert Mulcahy
Despair (1936): Fassbinder's Nabokov: From text to action!, Dennis Ioffe
Ticket to the Stars (1961): The Soviet Abroad (That We Lost), Otto Boele
Conclusion: Passport Control: Departing on a Cinematic Journey, Frederick H. White