The representation of metamorphosis in L'homme qui rit: modes of transmediation and reception contexts in German surrealism and contemporary cinema

• Grant number: 24/07609-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: September 01, 2024
• End date: August 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Ana Luiza Ramazzina Ghirardi
• Grantee: Melissa Marangoni Leme
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The present research project seeks to examine the relationships between modes oftransmediation and reception contexts of medias. It focuses on the facial disfigurement of Gwynplaine, the main character in Victor Hugo's novel "The Man Who Laughs" (1869), in twohomonymous film adaptations dated from 1928 and 2012. The initial hypothesis is that aestheticconceptions, technical possibilities, and prevalent forms of reception in each period impact therepertoire of narrative resources available for the transmediation of works. Victor Hugo's noveland the films based on it are produced in different centuries and target very differentcommunities as their target audience. This radical difference in the time and space of productionand reception of the works necessarily impacts the repertoire of technical resources andnarrative structures available. The project aims to examine the relationships between modes oftransmediation and reception contexts based on the theories of Julia Kristeva (1982) andMikhail Bakhtin (1965) on the beautiful and the grotesque, which permeate Victor Hugo'sworks; the works of Jacques Aumont (1995), André Gaudreault and Philippe Marion (2000,2002, 2005, 2016), and Kristin Thompson (2019) on aesthetics and the relationship withcinema; and Lars Elleström's (2017, 2019) analysis of transmediation and reception processes,based on his medium-centered model of communication. The project aims to contribute to the contemporary movement of reconstructing paradigms of literary texts and their reconfigurationin the context of new media and the new social dynamics of text circulation.