Film (Adaptation) as Translation: Some Methodological Proposa

Cattrysse, Patrick

doi:10.1075/target.4.1.05cat

Article published In: Target
Vol. 4:1 (1992) ► pp.53–70

Get fulltext from our e-platform

Download PDF

Film (Adaptation) as Translation

Some Methodological Proposa

Patrick Cattrysse | K.U Brussel

Published online: 1 January 1992

https://doi.org/10.1075/target.4.1.05cat

Abstract

This paper proposes an application of some particular theories, known as the 'polysystem' theories of translation, to the study of film adaptation. A preliminary and experimental analysis of a series of film adaptations made in the American film noir of the 1940s and 1950s shows that this approach provides the basis for a systematic and coherent method with theoretical foundations, and that it permits the study of aspects of film adaptation which have been neglected or ignored so far.

Résumé

L'article propose une application de quelques théories de la traductionspécifiques dites 'polysystémiques' à Vétude de Vadaptation filmique. Une analyse préliminaire et expérimentale d'un corpus d'adaptations filmiques réaliséesdans le film noir américain des années '40 et '50 permet de constater qu'une approche polysystémique du phénoméne de V adaptation filmique fournit les basesd'une méthode systématique, cohérente et théoriquement fondée, et qu'elle permet d'elargir le champ d'étude et d'examiner des aspects de l'adaptation filmiquenégligés ou ignores jusqu'ici.

Article outline

1.Introductory Note
2.The Method and Some Results
- a.Selection Policy
- b.Adaptation Policy
- c.The Functioning of Adaptations
- d.The Relations between Functions and Policies
3.Evaluation
4.New Perspectives for Film (Adaptation) Studies
4.Film Adaptation and Other Types of Text Processing
5.Conclusion
Notes
References

References (23)

References

Barthes, Roland. 1977. “Introduction à l’analyse structurale des récits”. Bartes et al. 1977: 7–57.

Barthes, Roland, Wayne C. Booth, Wolfgang Kayser and Philip Hamon. 1977. Poétique du récit. Paris: Editions du Seuil, Coll. Points.

Broich, Ulrich and Manfred Pfister. 1985. Intertextualität: Formen, Funktionen, anglistische Fallstudien. Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Konzepte der Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, 35.]

Cattrysse, Patrick. 1990. L’adaptation filmique de textes littéraires: Le film noir américain. Leuven. [unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation]

. 1992. Pour une théorie de l'adaptation filmique: Le film noir américain. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Even-Zohar, Itamar. 1978. “The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem”. James S Holmes, José Lambert and Raymond van den Broeck, eds. Literature and Translation: New Perspectives in Literary Studies. Leuven: Acco, 1978. 117–127. [a revised version in Even-Zohar 1990: 45-51.]

. 1981. “Translation Theory Today: A Call for Transfer Theory”. Poetics Today 2:4. 1–7. [A revised version entitled “Translation and Transfer” in Even-Zohar 1990: 73-78.]

. 1990. Polysystem Studies. Duke University Press. [ = Poetics Today 11:1]

Genette, Gérard. 1982. Palimpsestes: La littérature au second degré. Paris: Editions du Seuil, Coll. Poétique.

Harris, Brian. 1990. “Norms in Interpretation”. Target 2:1. 115–119.

Hermans, Theo, ed. 1985. The Manipulation of Literature: Studies in Literary Translation. London and Sydney: Croom Helm.

Higham, Charles and Joel Greenberg. 1968. Hollywood in the Forties. London: A. Zwemmer.

Hirsch, Foster. 1981. The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir. New York: Da Capo Press.

Lambert, José. 1980. “Production, tradition et importation: une clef pour la description de la littérature et de littérature en traduction”. Revue canadienne de littérature comparée 7:2. 246–252.

Lambert, José and Clem Robyns. 1992. “Translation”. Roland Posner, Klaus Robering and Thomas A. Sebeok, eds. A Handbook on the Sign-Theoretic Foundations of Nature and Culture. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. [forthcoming]

Manderbach, Jochen. 1988. Das Remake—Studien zu seiner Theorie und Praxis. Siegen, Universität-Gesamthochschule. [Massmedien und Kommunikation, 53].

Shlesinger, Miriam. 1989. “Extending the Theory of Translation to Interpretation: Norms as a Case in Point”. Target 1:1. 111–115.

Toury, Gideon. 1980. In Search of a Theory of Translation. Tel Aviv: The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics.

. 1985. “A Rationale for Descriptive Translation Studies”. Hermans 1985. 16–41.

. 1986. “Translation: A Cultural-Semiotic Perspective”. Thomas A. Sebeok et al., eds. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics. Berlin-New York-Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter, 1986. 1111–1124.

. in press. “‘Lower-Paradise’ in a Cross-Road: Sifting a Hebrew Translation of a German Schlaraffenland Text through a Russian Model”. Harald Kittel, ed. ‘History’ and ‘System’ in the Study of Literary Translation. Berlin: Erich Schmidt.

Vincendeau, Ginette. 1989. “Films en versions multiples”. Jacques Aumont, André Gaudreault and Michel Marie, eds. Histoire du Cinéma: Nouvelles Approches. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1989. 101–117.

Wienold, Götz. 1981. “Some Basic Aspects of Text Processing”. Poetics Today 2:4. 97–109.

Cited by (43)

Cited by 43 other publications

Order by:

Vaz Pinto, Maria & Rafael H. Villarreal

2025. 133Graph rings and ideals: Wolmer Vasconcelos’ contributions. In Commutative Algebra, ► pp. 133 ff.

Yaman, Büşra

2025. Translation In Early Turkish-German Illustrated Books For The Children Of Guest Workers: The Case Of Jugend&Volk Verlag. Söylem Filoloji Dergisi 10:1 ► pp. 546 ff.

Zhang, Haoxuan

2024. Translating China for the Gazing Eyes—A Case Study of the Battle at Lake Changjin. In The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations, ► pp. 67 ff.

Caño Rivera, Claudia

2023. El papel de la música en la adaptación cinematográfica de la novela La noche de la Usina de Eduardo Sacheri. La Palabra :45 ► pp. 1 ff.

Kaźmierczak, Marta

2023. Intermediality and/in Translation. In The Palgrave Handbook of Intermediality, ► pp. 1 ff.

Kaźmierczak, Marta

2024. Intermediality and/in Translation. In The Palgrave Handbook of Intermediality, ► pp. 285 ff.

Miszuk, Paweł

2023. On continuity in comic book film adaptations and beyond. Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance 16:3 ► pp. 213 ff.

Hieu, Le Quoc

2022. East–West rewriting and recontextualization: Approaching Rashōmon (Akira Kurosawa) and its afterlives from adaptation theory. Asian Cinema 33:1 ► pp. 55 ff.

JUNIOR, Edison Gomes

2022. TRADUÇÃO SEMIODISCURSIVA NO FILME PARANOID PARK: A TRILHA MUSICAL NÃO-ORIGINAL COMO ESTRATÉGIA DE PRODUÇÃO DE SENTIDO. Alfa: Revista de Linguística (São José do Rio Preto) 66

SAĞLAM, Naciye

2022. From Page to Stage, Linguistic to Multimodal: Stage Adaptations from Literary Texts. Çeviribilim ve Uygulamaları Dergisi 2022:33 ► pp. 119 ff.

Szymkowska-Bartyzel, Jolanta

2022. The catcher in an imaginary America: The perverse domestication of American reality in Krzysztof Zanussi’s Holden (1961). Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance 15:3 ► pp. 227 ff.

Weedon, Alexis

2021. Introduction. In The Origins of Transmedia Storytelling in Early Twentieth Century Adaptation, ► pp. 1 ff.

Jiang, Xiaohu

2020. Between translation studies and adaptation studies: Via the case of Li Shaohong’s cinematic domestication of Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance 13:3 ► pp. 223 ff.

Ramos Pinto, Sara & Elisabetta Adami

2020. Traduire dans un monde de signes non traduits : l’incidence de la multimodalité en traductologie*. Meta 65:1 ► pp. 9 ff.

Chowdhury, Tapan, Samya Muhuri, Susanta Chakraborty & Sabitri Nanda Chakraborty

2019. Analysis of Adapted Films and Stories Based on Social Network. IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems 6:5 ► pp. 858 ff.

Uribe-Jongbloed, Enrique & Manuel A Corredor Aristizábal

2019. The Adaptation ofDon Camillothrough the Cultural Transduction Framework: From Italian Bestseller to Franco-Italian Film to a Colombian TV Series. Adaptation 12:1 ► pp. 44 ff.

Mendes, Ana Cristina & Joel Kuortti

2017. Padma or No Padma: Audience in the Adaptations of Midnight’s Children. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 52:3 ► pp. 501 ff.

Nazaruddin, Muzayin, B. Mohamad & H. Abu Bakar

2017. Islam in the Indonesian religious soap opera: faithfulness for the sake of commodification. SHS Web of Conferences 33 ► pp. 00068 ff.

Iliescu Gheorghiu, Catalina

2016. Though This BeAdaptation,Yet There Is Method in’t. Film Re-titling for Spanish Viewers. Adaptation 9:2 ► pp. 142 ff.

Yau, Wai-Ping

2016. Revisiting the systemic approach to the study of film adaptation as intersemiotic translation. Translation Studies 9:3 ► pp. 256 ff.

Yau, Wai‐Ping

2014. Translation and Film: Dubbing, Subtitling, Adaptation, and Remaking. In A Companion to Translation Studies, ► pp. 492 ff.

Zabalbeascoa, Patrick

2016. Censoring Lolita's sense of humor: when translation affects the audience's perception. Perspectives 24:1 ► pp. 93 ff.

Zabalbeascoa, Patrick

2025. Intersemiotic translation. Między Oryginałem a Przekładem 31:3(69) ► pp. 101 ff.

Stathi, Irini

2015. Inter-semiotic Translation and Transfer Theory in Cinematic/Audiovisual Adaptations of Greek Drama. In International Handbook of Semiotics, ► pp. 321 ff.

Minier, Márta

2013. Federici, Eleonora, ed. 2011. Translating Gender. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 25:2 ► pp. 291 ff.

Cattrysse, Patrick

2011. Descriptive and Normative Norms in Film Adaptation: The Hays Office and the American Film Noir. Cinémas 6:2-3 ► pp. 167 ff.

Cattrysse, Patrick

2020. Translation and Adaptation Studies: More Interdisciplinary Reflections on Theories of Definition and Categorization. TTR 33:1 ► pp. 21 ff.

Liang, Yanli, Xiaoling Li & Jiachen Zhang

2010. 2010 International Conference on Management and Service Science, ► pp. 1 ff.

Szarkowska, Agnieszka

2010. Chiaro, Delia, Christine Heiss & Chiara Bucaria, eds. 2008. Between Text and Image. Updating research in screen translation. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 22:2 ► pp. 363 ff.

Chan, Tak-Hung Leo

2009. At the Borders of Translation: Traditional and Modern(ist) Adaptations, East and West. Meta 54:3 ► pp. 387 ff.

D’hulst, Lieven

2007. Comment analyser la traduction interculturelle ?. In La traductologie dans tous ses états, ► pp. 27 ff.

Pettit, Z.

2007. Translating Verbal and Visual Language inThe Piano. Perspectives 15:3 ► pp. 177 ff.

Sütiste, Elin & Peeter Torop

2007. Processual boundaries of translation: Semiotics and translation studies. Semiotica 2007:163

Venuti, Lawrence

2007. Adaptation, Translation, Critique. Journal of Visual Culture 6:1 ► pp. 25 ff.

Gambier, Yves

2006. Orientations de la recherche en traduction audiovisuelle. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 18:2 ► pp. 261 ff.

Chaume Varela, Frédéric & John Alexander Jiménez (TRADUCTOR)

2004. Models of Research in Audiovisual Translation. Íkala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura 9:1 ► pp. 351 ff.

Soukup, Paul A.

2004. Transforming the Sacred: The American Bible Society New Media Translation Project. Journal of Media and Religion 3:2 ► pp. 101 ff.

Weissbrod, Rachel

2004. From Translation to Transfer. Across Languages and Cultures 5:1 ► pp. 23 ff.

Weissbrod, Rachel

2009. Translating Words into Visual Signs: Face Photography in The Summer of Aviya and The Island on Bird Street. Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance 1:3 ► pp. 221 ff.

Varela, Frederic Chaume

1999. La traducción audiovisual: Investigación y docencia. Perspectives 7:2 ► pp. 209 ff.

La Trecchia, Patrizia

1998. Dubbing: An Italian case study. Perspectives 6:1 ► pp. 113 ff.

[no author supplied]

2019. The Cinematic Novel and Postmodern Pop Fiction [FILLM Studies in Languages and Literatures, 13],

[no author supplied]

2019. Representing the Exotic and the Familiar [FILLM Studies in Languages and Literatures, 12],

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.