Literature and cinema - an inextricable union of two types of art

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Cinema and literature are art forms that are inextricably linked with each other. One of them originated in ancient times. The other is at the end of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, literature and cinema have a close relationship that does not weaken even in the age of computer technology. What is the strength of this alliance?

Literature and modernity

A man of the XXI century is in a hurry to live. He doesn't have time for much thought. He needs to have time to make a career, get a new speci alty, acquire another novelty of technology. In other words, build a modern life.

Read the three-volume work of a classic? For what? Watching the film adaptation will take no more than two hours. This activity, unlike reading, will fit into the rapid pace of life. However, the works of outstanding directors and actors show otherwise. Literature and cinema have not lost touch. A relatively new art form is able to revive interest in the one that appeared in Antiquity.

Movies encourage reading books

Filmmakers todayreferring to classical literature. In recent decades, more than one film adaptation has been created. According to Dostoevsky's novel, for example, one fairly well-known director made a television series. Surprisingly, the publishers had to release the novel The Idiot in huge circulation. After watching the series, modern man, despite the lack of free time, began to read Dostoevsky.

There are many examples of film adaptations that stimulate sales in the book market. But in order to understand what is the connection between literature and cinema, it is worth remembering how it all began. Who and when first used a work of art as a material for creating a film?

The Rise of Cinema

Cinema was created in the 19th century. But the first sound film came out much later, in 1927. Cinematography has become, as Bulgakov's brooding dog put it, the only consolation for women. But not only for them. Movies have become massively popular.

Screen adaptation of a work of art, linking art forms such as literature and cinema, has become an indispensable genre. Directors and screenwriters turned to the works of the classics. A short film based on Zola's work was made in 1902.

Even before the appearance of sound films, directors began to film the famous creations of Russian writers. In 1909, Pyotr Chardynin presented his interpretation of the poem "Dead Souls" to the audience. However, if we talk about the topic "Russian literature in cinema", it is worth saying a few words about the film adaptation of Pushkin's stories.

Movie promotion

Until 1917, films were made on almost all the works of the great Russian writer. We are talking, of course, about prose. Film adaptations of the early twentieth century have little in common with modern ones. Rather, they were some illustrations of famous stories.

In the era of silent films, filmmakers turned to Pushkin's texts, which may have been associated with the promotion of a new art form. Cinema needed a name known throughout Russia. Before the revolution, private film companies operated in the country. After the seventeenth year, their activities were terminated. However, films based on Pushkin's prose continued to be created even in difficult times for Russia.

There were periods of calm in the history of Soviet film adaptations. For example, only one film based on Pushkin's work belongs to the era of the Khrushchev thaw - "The Captain's Daughter".

Leo Tolstoy

For the first time, domestic filmmakers tried to translate "War and Peace" on the screens in 2015. Then foreign directors were inspired by the work of Tolstoy. In one of the adaptations, the role of Natasha Rostova was played by Audrey Hepburn. But what do American filmmakers, even the most gifted, know about the enigmatic Russian soul? A Hollywood director cannot convey the spirit of the national characteristics of Leo Tolstoy's novel. So thought the Soviet workers of culture. That is why they decided to make a film based on the book of the great writer. And there is no equal to this film adaptation by many criteria of world cinema.

The film entered the record bookGuinness

Sergey Bondarchuk was chosen as the director of the picture. Thirty thousand rubles were allocated from the fund (a significant amount at that time). The artists began to work on sketches of costumes and scenery. The screenwriter studied literary studies, Tolstoy's correspondence, military and documentary sources. It took several months for acting tests. Filming was accompanied by many difficulties. The cast changed more than once at the beginning of work.

Russian literature in Russian cinema has a long and interesting history. But never, before or since, filming a work of art was not so large-scale. In terms of the number of film statistics, the film "War and Peace" has no equal in history.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

The first film based on the writer's prose was shot in 1910. A quarter of a century later, the Petersburg Tale came out, which is a mixture of Netochka Nezvanova and White Nights. Then, according to Dostoevsky, paintings were created in France, Japan, and Italy. As for Russian cinema, no prose has caused so much controversy and discussion regarding the ways of interpretation on the screen, as created by the author of the great "pentateuch".

Fiction literature in the cinema of the Soviet period is, first of all, adaptations of stories, novels, novels by Dostoevsky. His characters are so complex that it is considered a great honor to play them in an acting environment. For directors, however, the film adaptation of The Idiot or any other work by Dostoevsky is not just a transfer of the plot to the movie screen. This is an opportunity to convey to the audience a special vision of the prose writer's idea.

Mystical book

The union of literature and cinema collapsed more than once when trying to film The Master and Margarita.

Bulgakov is the most mysterious Russian writer. A lot has been said about the evil fate that haunts the actors who played the heroes of the novel. Filming based on Bulgakov's book, as a rule, was interrupted. Only two directors managed to complete what they started.

Perhaps it's all about the mysticism that surrounded the writer. Or, perhaps, there are areas of human consciousness in which literature and cinema still do not intersect? Bulgakov's work today does not have a film adaptation that would correspond to the original. Not a single director could recreate the atmosphere of Moscow society, the emptiness of the Master, the suffering of Margarita, the antics of Koroviev and Behemoth in such a way that the impressions from the film were comparable in strength to the feelings experienced by the reader. But to say that Bulgakov's prose is not subject to film adaptation is impossible.

A human heart, not a dog's…

In 1987, the story "Heart of a Dog" was published in one of the literary magazines. A year later, Vladimir Bortko began filming a film based on Bulgakov's work. The result of the work of the director, outstanding actors and the famous composer was the best film adaptation of the prose of this writer in the history of cinema.

The director didn't put the story on film. He created a system of images based on Bulgakov's prose. Sharikov would not have become such an interesting and colorful movie character ifin creating his character, the writer and director used only the text of the original.

Scenes have been completed. In creating the film, the director involved Yuli Kim. The poet wrote the lyrics to the songs performed by the meeting participants, so unloved by Preobrazhensky. Kim is also the author of obscene ditties, which, combined with Sharikov's dances, made the professor faint. "Is he still dancing?" the professor asks in a weak voice. There is no comical retort in Bulgakov's story. The screenwriter of the film put with these words awareness, bitterness that the luminary of world science experiences at the sight of the result of his own experiment.

Who is Sharikov? This is not a man with a dog's heart, as Dr. Bormenthal put it. Sharikov is a scoundrel with a human heart. And this, according to Preobrazhensky, is the reason for the terrible consequences of the operation.

Sharikov creates his new world on hatred of the old. He is uneducated, stubborn and categorical. He expresses his opinion on the necessary economic reform very briefly, laconically: "Take and divide." In the film, Bulgakov's character would not have been so bright, if not for the talented acting, additional, at first glance, insignificant scenes. The director conveyed the spirit of the time, the so-called devastation, the atmosphere of catastrophicity. The tragedy of the post-revolutionary era is also conveyed by the music that creates the background in the picture.

Sholokhov

A talented writer raises a small, insignificant character to the level of a full-fledged hero. In the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" there are only suchcharacters. Sholokhov was a representative of the realistic trend in literature. But he did not "photograph" what he saw. The way a writer transferred experience and impressions to paper can be compared to the skill of a painter. And the more talented the author, the more difficult it is for the director to translate his ideas on the screen.

Sergey Gerasimov managed to create a worthy adaptation of Sholokhov's novel. Subsequently, the attempts of other directors to make a picture based on The Quiet Don caused the just anger of film critics and the disappointment of the audience. Cinema is related to literature. But only if the director's skill is not inferior to the writer's gift of the author of the book, for the film adaptation of which he undertakes.

Vasily Shukshin

The prose of this author was easy and close to the common reader. Shukshin was not only a writer, but also a screenwriter, director, and actor. Therefore, he knew better than other filmmakers how strong the connection between such concepts as literature and cinema.

Children today find it difficult to understand why reading a book if there is a movie. Such ideas about literature will lead to the fact that the book will soon become a rarity. An impractical and useless souvenir item. Shukshin believed that no film adaptation could replace reading the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol. The means of cinema and literature, in his opinion, are not equal. Cinematography is an art. But only a reader can appreciate the director's skill.

Domestic literature in cinema is a topic that has been the subject of many studies. These areas have a mutualconnection. But literature can exist without adaptation. Cinema without classical prose would be a primitive form of entertainment. Even films based on original stories receive positive criticism only if they are created according to the laws of classical prose.