Abstract
The last chapter specifically addresses the issue of transmediality through extensive discussions on Dai’s and Gao’s contrastive approaches to cinema. Dai and Gao are preoccupied with different kinds of literary and cinematic works, and have quite divergent ideas of image, language, and narrative. This chapter will first examine the transmedia storytelling in Dai’s novel and film Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse chinoise (2000) (Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress [2002]) and then move on to two of Gao’s more experimental films La Silhouette sinon l’ombre (Silhouette/Shadow) (2007) and Après le déluge (After the Flood) (2008), which are radically anti-storytelling. Gao’s alternative cinematic expressions, as I will illustrate through a large selection of images, are directly informed by the visual aesthetics of his ink paintings. Yet, in both Dai’s and Gao’s works, I will highlight the exact roles played by translation in my assessment of Dai’s and Gao’s different and contrastive transmedia aesthetics.
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- 1.
Again, for ease, the French version of the novel will be abbreviated to Balzac, the film adaptation to Balzac film, and the English translation to Little Seamstress.
- 2.
As explained in the general introduction, the word “transmedia” is often employed as an attributive adjective, especially in established phrases such as “transmedia studies”, “transmedia aesthetics”, and “transmedia storytelling” (Freeman and Gambarato 2019). However, when it is used as a predicate adjective or in other more descriptive contexts, I switch to the form “transmedial”.
- 3.
Most noticeably, there are crucial differences in literary and cultural references between the Chinese and French subtitles.
- 4.
Naficy’s notion of “accented cinema” refers to a cinematic formation that bears an inextricable relation to exilic and diasporic communities, often in contrast to the dominant cinema which is “considered universal and without accent” (Naficy 2004, 143). The subtitles, in this context, are one of the visual indications of the accent.
- 5.
France is traditionally a dubbing country (but less so for independent cinema). Foreign-language films shown on TV are routinely dubbed. Outside big cities, it is often difficult to experience foreign-language films in the original version at local cinemas. One should never underestimate the qualitative impact of dubbing on the overall performance of “foreign” films in France. However, this distinction between dubbing and subtitling countries is far from absolute. For a clarification of the myths and realities of such a distinction, see Chaume (2012, 6–7).
- 6.
The English translation here is mine as the translator of the published English translation cuts out completely the reference to cinema: “[her son’s] vivid imagination was better suited to fiction than to faking folk songs”.
- 7.
I have slightly modified the English translation by adding an explicit reference to film in the French version.
- 8.
I have added the corresponding parenthesis to this English translation, which is omitted by the translator.
- 9.
My English translation here, as the translator removes the reference to “image”—a consistent one in this final chapter—and renders the expression simply as “now for the ending”.
- 10.
I will address the idea of “semiotic transposition” more explicitly in the second half of this chapter on Gao’s cinema and ink paintings in transmedial parlance proper. Yet, I will still reconnect it back to the notion of the translational.
- 11.
I have modified this quotation from the published English translation accordingly to make it appear syntactically closer to the French original.
- 12.
“Some sailor’s elements” is my own translation, as the English translator skips this expression.
- 13.
As mentioned, for most viewers, reading written texts and intertexts in the subtitle is still an intrinsic part of the viewing experience.
- 14.
According to Bakhtin’s concept of heterology, while heteroglossia refers to the diversity of languages, heterophony refers to the diversity of individual voices. The latter belongs to the realm of utterance which is “oriented toward a social horizon” and “necessarily falls within one or more types of discourses determined by a horizon” (Todorov 1984, 56).
- 15.
It must be clarified that the primary focus of Meers’s study is the comparison between American English and continental European languages in films. The majority of the young Flemish viewers actually prefer American English as the language of the screen, which betrays a different “social environment” (Meers 2004, 168).
- 16.
I have largely appropriated Michael Cronin’s (Cronin 2009, 13) formulation on the recontexualization of Hollywood blockbusters abroad.
- 17.
More concretely, the linguistic “suspension of disbelief” refers to francophone viewers’ tacit acceptance that “most of the characters should speak French” (Mingant 2010, 715–717).
- 18.
- 19.
Deppman convincingly explores the influence of Shen Congwen’s lyricism and Scar Literature’s testimonial realism on Dai’s novel, and that of the work of the Fifth and Sixth Generation directors on Dai’s film.
- 20.
As Tan (2006, 160) observes, “a pirated version of the DVD is easily accessibly in the mainland”. In fact, the film is nowadays freely available on popular Chinese online platforms such as YouKu.com.
- 21.
Sinophone speakers from outside the Northeast of China often associate this regional dialect and accent with a particular kind of sketch comedy known as er ren zhuan (“two-people rotation”), especially due to the popularity of variety shows on TV and the internet.
- 22.
Dai (Balzac Film, DVD 2) claims that the reason that he decided not to shoot the film in the original village in remote Sichuan where he was “sent down” was because the place still remained largely inaccessible by vehicles at the time of filming. However, if we were to completely trust Dai’s claim, the Tianmen Mountain in Hunan would seem too radically different as an alternative.
- 23.
I have adapted Christopher Bush’s (2010, xxv) scintillating remark on the function of China in Western literary modernism.
- 24.
See Yoko Tawada’s formulation of exophone literature explained in the general introduction.
- 25.
Language and languages (English, Chinese, French) come back to play a more important role in Le Deuil de la beauté, which has a more “essayistic” style. But this third film falls outside the scope of the present study.
- 26.
See Sect. 4.2.2.
- 27.
I would like to thank Ileana Chirila for drawing my attention to this translation issue from French to English.
- 28.
Whether in Gao’s literary or visual works, walking and wandering constitute a significant theme. In a way, the artist may be seen to have inscribed his own identity in the elaboration of such a theme, if we remind ourselves that “xing-jian” literally means “to walk, travel, or behave well or healthily”. In previous chapters, I already noted how both Cheng and Shan subtly inscribe the meanings of their Chinese (pen) names in their respective translingual fictional and artistic fabric.
- 29.
I put “silent” in inverted commas here because Gao is known to “always listen to music while painting” (cited in Tam 2018, 154), to the extent that we might even consider his paintings to be visual and intersemiotic translations of the music he listens to. However, as viewers of Gao’s paintings, we are less likely to hear—whether physically or in our head—the sonic “origin” or “method of creation” behind Gao paintings, although we may be encouraged to do so.
- 30.
In fact, Gao does not really see his paintings as still images. He regularly hires a professional video-maker to film his series of paintings, and Gao directs the various camera movements to capture or reflect what he calls the “internal movement of paintings” (Bittinger and Thouroude 2012, 92).
- 31.
Jason Kuo’s (2013, 256) catalogue wrongly dated this painting as 2009. He had probably misread Gao’s handwriting of “4” for “9” at the bottom left of the original painting. This particular detail matters to my discussion here because the two dates of the painting mark a different temporal or even “genealogical” relation to the film.
- 32.
Such a performance may bear certain relations to Gao’s dramatic theory of “the neutral actor”. However, Gao’s idea of theatre falls outside the scope of this study. For a helpful discussion on this topic, see Fong and Chan (2018, 109–114).
- 33.
Simply put, Elleström (2021, 58) uses the term “qualified media” to describe the kind of media that have “expected aesthetic qualities” by convention and are “presented within certain social and artistic frames”.
- 34.
Elleström also offers his explanation and adaptation of Peircian semiotics in his theorization of intermediality. His application of the notion of iconicity in literature and visual art is of particular relevance here; however, he does not frame his findings as translation. See Elleström (2016, 453–457).
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Li, S. (2021). Translational (Anti-)Storytelling and Transmedia Aesthetics. In: Travel, Translation and Transmedia Aesthetics. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5562-3_5
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