Inter-semiotic Translation and Transfer Theory in Cinematic/Audiovisual Adaptations of Greek Drama

Abstract

This chapter examines cinematic adaptations of theatrical plays as results of an inter-semiotic translation from a semiotic system to another. Cinematic adaptations have been an important part of the history of cinema from its earliest times. Significant plays (from Greek tragedy and Opera to Shakespeare and Beckett’s plays) have been treated in order to be transformed into films and recently also into interactive audiovisual texts. This chapter attempts to approach the subject from the “transfer theory” perspective and it also involves “translation theory”. Jacobson’s conception of “inter-semiotic translation” is the main theory for this approach and combined with Even-Zohar’s “transfer theory” gives the possibility to explore how the relationships between theatre and cinema in general, cinematic adaptations of classic Greek tragedy plays by diverse directors such as Cacoyannis, Pasolini, Jancsó, Dassin or Angelopoulos in particular, offer a framework for dealing with two issues:

(a) The way in which cinematic/audiovisual adaptations of plays manoeuvre between the theatre and the moving images, two distinct media that use different semiotic languages and involve different kinds of technologies that help the production of a new meaning after the transfer

(b) How those adaptations manage the distance between the original text and the time and condition of their specific production/adaptation