Barren lives, from book to film: study on the adaptation process

Author(s)

Julio Cesar Borges Bomfim

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2011-05-02

Examining board members

Fabiana Buitor Carelli; Benjamin Abdala Junior; Eduardo Victorio Morettin

• Advisor: Fabiana Buitor Carelli

Abstract

The dissertation Barren Lives, from book to film aims to comparatively study the structure and the issue of narration in Graciliano Ramoss book Vidas secas and in Nelson Pereira dos Santos film Vidas secas, taking into consideration the differences between literature and film, the patterns created by the process of adaptation, the circumstances within which the two works were produced and the temporal lap between the two pieces. Adapting a book into film is, in our opinion, much more a matter of admiration and dialogue than of establishing differences between one piece of work and the other. More than an adaptation of one of the Brazilian contemporary literatures masterpieces into film, the cinematic reading of Vidas secas made by Nelson Pereira dos Santos also aimed to intervene in its contemporary Brazilian political life, especially in the debate concerning the land ownership and the Brazilian social structure in the 1960s. In this dissertation, our aim is to build up an analytical reading of these two works, based on some concepts from Comparative Studies and Comparative Literature, trying to better understand the two pieces different structures, the books original literary narrative and the films cinematic narrative, considering the latter a result of an audiovisual comprehension and re-creation of the first. (AU)