ANNA ÉDES IN BETWEEN FILM AND LITERATURE LÁSZLÓ FÁBIÁN UNIVERSITY OF THEATRE AND FILM DOCTORAL SCHOOL SUMMARY OF DLA THESIS

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1 UNIVERSITY OF THEATRE AND FILM DOCTORAL SCHOOL ANNA ÉDES IN BETWEEN FILM AND LITERATURE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS SUMMARY OF DLA THESIS LÁSZLÓ FÁBIÁN 2012 SUPERVISOR: GYÖRGY BÁRON, DLA, PROFESSOR

2 My DLA dissertation examines the phenomenon of adaptation, focusing on one literary text, Dezső Kosztolányi s Anna Édes and its film adaptation. The aim of the thesis is to present the topic in its complexity as despite numerous studies written on the subject especially on the novel and to some extent on Zoltán Fábri's film we can find no systematic analysis. In my paper I wish to carry out a comparative analysis between the novel and the films with great care and philological and genre accuracy. I will explore the concept of adaptation from a theoretical perspective, examine the relationship between film and literature, and in the last chapter, I will give a brief overview of understanding and interpreting texts and films. As a consequence of the studies I have done in the past, I decided to focus my analysis on a piece of work from the Nyugat literary period. Although I chose Kosztolányi s novel there is a long list of acclaimed authors I could have also considered from the same period. The cream of Hungarian writers appears in front of us: Frigyes Karinthy, Zsigmond Móricz, Dezső Kosztolányi, Mihály Babits, Ferenc Molnár, Ferenc Móra, Margit Kaffka, or Tibor Déry all published around this time, just to mention the most significant ones. Some of their writings like A Journey Round My Skull, The Boys of the Pál Street, Relatives, Ant Heap, Nobody s Daughter, Hannibal Resurrected, Anna Édes, Skylark, The Golden Kite, The Unfinished Sentence are among the most highly praised pieces of literature not only in Hungary but abroad, too. If we look at the above listing from a cinematic point of view, we can see that besides their artistic value, the film adaptations brought incredible national and international success to the directors and the actors. Just think of Fábri s Whirligig or Ranódy s Skylark. Among the works directed by Zoltán Fábri we could also mention Professor Hannibal, The Boys of the Pál Street, Ant Heap, or 141 Minutes from the Unfinished Sentence, while the list of oeuvres by Ranódy includes Skylark, The Golden Kite, Nobody s Daughter, The sixacre rose garden or Be Faithful Onto Death, not to mention Máriássy Félix s Relatives. The abundance, however, also caused difficulties as I needed to narrow down the wide range of literary works and film adaptations mentioned above. Deciding which one to focus on was not an easy task since almost all of them would have been worth analysing. At the same time, the direction I was meant to take became more and more obvious. 2

3 The dissertation can be divided into five major structural blocks. On the one hand, it was clear from a methodological perspective that I needed to investigate the phenomenon of adaptation, its possible categorizations and see how these categories could be defined accurately. Secondly, as a natural consequence of any adaptation, it seemed logical that a crucial part of my essay would consist not only of giving a brief description of the literary piece or pieces but to determine the framework of interpretation applied and to identify the possible approaches. Naturally, the third pillar is to adapt these phenomena to films, to define the circle of audience and to put into context the birth of the work or works of art. The fourth chapter is sort of a mixture of the previous two, identifying concrete motifs and looking at the works from both analytical and comparative perspectives. Additionally to the theoretical basics, the categorical approaches and the more concrete interpretation of motifs, in the last chapter I intend to widen the horizon of my dissertation by empiric analysis. I believe this particular approach will make the paper unique. As the method and the form have gradually developed, the scope of my research started to gain a more distinctive shape, too. The various aspects of my approach suggested that only one literary text can be the focus of my study. I knew that if I wanted to write a thorough, creative, thought-provoking and inspiring dissertation, with all the general overviews and more specific details mentioned previously, I needed to keep the scope of my study relatively restricted. After a long and thoughtful consideration I started to narrow down the scope of the analysis. Due to the fact that I teach Hungarian Grammar and Literature in a public school, it was almost inevitable to focus my attention on the literary canon. With my supervisor, we decided that it would make more sense to focus not only on the text itself but on its film adaptation as well. Also because not only Zoltán Fábri was deeply engaged in the topic, as demonstrated by his well-known film adaptation, but the telefilm of Károly Esztergályos can be counted among the many interested in the subject. Since today Kosztolányi s novel is part of the mandatory texts to be read in secondary schools, it was clear that the by investigating how high school students interpret texts and films and by understanding what kinds of effects the film adaption can have on their 3

4 interpretative strategies applied to the original text, I could add very new aspects to the subject. While exploring the subject in more detail, I realised that it is absolutely necessary to look at the circumstances surrounding the birth of the text and the film. Such important highlights can greatly impact and add several extra layers of meaning to the process of interpretation. Since the novel was written in quite a fragile historical period, it also became evident that in order to see clearly and stay as objective as possible, I needed to touch upon some delicate subjects. This is why I included the chapter dealing with Kosztolányi s role around or the part in which I examine the transformation of the film production after 1956, including Fábri s position in those shaky days. By analysing Kosztolányi s activities in , my primary aim was to point at some possible levels of meanings within the text. I believe this approach is also backed up by Kosztolányi himself who reveals the importance of the those years by placing his story in that specific historic context. Moreover, the film adaptation is not interesting only because of its debut in 1958 but also because it became a significant step in Kosztolányi s rehabilitation. I find it crucial to place the film in its historic context as the transformation of the film production and the changes in the ideologies had a massive effect on art, often providing the receivers with a set of pre-made interpretative strategies. In my dissertation, therefore, I will attempt to review the phenomenon of adaptation and to examine and compare the various categories that arise from it. It is exceptional not only because it prepares the way for others studying the film adaptations of Kosztolányi s novel from both a methodological and a theoretical perspective, but also because it provides a complex overview of the subject using the considerations of the cinematic form of visual art, film aesthetics and film history. The rather abstract analysis is followed by the introduction of the most significant critical essays published on the subject after which I refer to those details that I find especially interesting due to the particular atmosphere they create, that is, the circumstances surrounding the birth of the writing, the question of authorship or genre. Not only do I do so for the sake of 4

5 meeting the high literary and philological expectations I set for myself but also to prepare the ground for the comparative analysis. It is fairly obvious that after presenting how the written text is received by its readers, I move onto its visual adaptation to see the circumstances in which it was created. Only after this can I start looking at the rhetoric s of the original text and its adaptations as we might need to be familiar with the terminologies related to the study of motives analyzed in the previous chapters of my dissertation. In the appendix I focus on how the students interpret Kosztolányi s Édes Anna, I explore what interpretation strategies they apply to Fábri s film and in the very and I carry out a comparative analysis between the two approaches. 5