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The Contrast between “Culture” and “Nature” as Meaning-Making Systems in the Process of Cultural Translation: A Comparative Study of A Streetcar Named Desire and its Two Cinematic Adaptations by Kazan and Tavakkoli
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Ramtin Shahbazi   |
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Abstract: (2400 Views) |
The relationship between a written text and a cinematic script is based on their inter-lingual translation. Written signs change to visual ones and some changes occur along the way: changes which can be studied and researched from both aesthetics and interdisciplinary points of view. The theories of Yuri Lotman and his fellows’ in cultural semiotics of the Tartu- Moscow School provide a basis for such interdisciplinary studies. They believed that a part of meaning production is formed amid “the contrast between nature and culture”. The perspective assumes culture as the sign of calm and nature as the sign of chaos. Based on this theory a dialectics is developed between meaning-making systems in art criticism and cultural systems. Paying attention to this, the present paper tries to re-read culture and nature in cultural semiotics and explore the potentials of this topic for studying cultural translation (adaptation) of cinematic works, seeking its patterns. This is followed by a reading from Tennessee Williams’s play A Streetcar Named Desire based on Tartu-Moscow cultural school in which the contrast between culture and nature is studied using a comparative approach, in the plays two cinematic adaptations A Streetcar Named Desire by Elia Kazan (1951) and The Stranger by Bahram Tavakkoli (2013). Using library research and descriptive-comparative method, the research tries to cast light on translation mechanisms of “culture” and “nature” from the original text to its adaptations, and how the semiological differences of “culture” and “nature” between the original and the adaptation help in meaning making. |
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| Keywords: Adaptation, A Streetcar Named Desire, Culture and Nature, Cultural Semiotics, Yori Lotman. |
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Full-Text [PDF 912 kb]
(1752 Downloads)
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Type of Study: Research |
Subject:
General
Received: 2018/12/18 | Accepted: 2019/01/30
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