Adaptation: Literature to Film in Latin America

Catalog description

This seminar explores the mechanisms and discourses of film adaptations of Latin American literary texts. We examine the intertextual relationship between writing and filmmaking by focusing on Latin American film adaptations of different literary genres such as the colonial chronicle, novel, travelogue, nonfiction narrative, short story, and poetry. We consider the contentious issue of whether films must remain "faithful" to a printed original and ask what it takes for a filmmaker to preserve the aesthetic value of an admired literary text when adapting it to the screen. The seminar also explores the role and particularities of adaptation in Latin American cinema to understand what makes Latin American adaptations unique. We investigate different theoretical approaches to adaptation in order to analyze the mechanisms of adaptation of literature to film. Students will acquire the critical discourse analysis and media literacy skills to evaluate narrative elements and discursive strategies used in both literary and filmic texts in Spanish. We also study the mutual influence of Latin American literature and film and examine the technical, artistic, and ethical problems that arise when adapting literary texts to film. Conducted in Spanish.