The Strategies of Adaptation of Ivan Bunin in the Cinema: Interpretation and Reinterpretation

The article discusses the strategies of interpretation and reinterpretation of fiction on the case of the film adaptation of I. Bunin’s novel Dry Valley (Sukhodol) (1911) by the modern Russian director Alexandra Strelyanaya. In Bunin’s novel and the film of the same name (2011), the focus is on the character of the “Russian soul.” The authors demonstrate that there are two strategies of fiction adaptation - interpretation and reinterpretation. The experience of the director combines both strategies in such a way that, within the framework of the interpretation, which preserves the artisitic integrity of the literary source, a local reinterpretation takes place. If a global reinterpretation leads to a complete rethinking of the basic text, including its deformation, which initiates the formation of a new artistic integrity in which the source is recognized only partially, then a local reinterpretation affects exclusively individual elements of the literary basis. Such an experience opens up new horizons in the process of exploring the original source, setting a new different look at the classical model. After a comparative analysis of the text of the source and film text, the authors come to the conclusion that, unlike the novel’s character of Natalya, who has a “beautiful and miserable” soul, Natalya in the film appears in all the grandeur of her spirit. In this context, the once undivided love for the young gentleman, which arose in the soul of the main character, eventually becomes for her the source of divine Love, which Natalia keeps up to the end of her days and which permeates her whole being. Therefore, nothing else than Love acts as a criterion for the authenticity of the Russian soul of the central character of Bunin’s novel, and such love is the unshakable foundation of the individual’s spiritual independence.

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