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Paper Abstract: Semiotic analysis of two films adapted from novels. KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN and THE NAME OF THE ROSE. Differences between novels and cinematic adaptations. Styles and methods of visualizing the written word. Mixing of film genres. Symbols of different genres. Plot. Charaters. Relationships. Theme of desire for escape. Paper Introduction: Intertextuality is defined as a by-produce of the semiotic approach to film, and it questions realism by emphasizing the coded and constructed nature of the film artifact. Art is thus seen as responding not to reality but to other discourses. Many films are overtly self-referential, associating their plots with the act of filmmaking itself. Often such associations have a wider significance and relate the work of art to the broader question of what constitutes art and how art is expressed. The film may also be associated with and in part explained by reference to other discourses, such as politics, law, social issues, and so on. Two such movies which reflect on art and politics and the juncture between the two are Kiss of the Spider Woman (Babenco, 1985) and The Name of the Rose (Annaud, 1986). Both films began as novels and so connect with other films Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Most of Puig's novel is presented as a dialogue between the two men,and they reveal themselves in their own words. As he interacts with Valent?n,however, he begins to take the side of the young man. The film references the mystery story, the medieval romance, thepolitical drama, and religious subjects. The two men do the samething from time to time, though it is not always clear to the reader in thefist half of the book what the relationship really is and from what pointof view each man is approaching that relationship. The novel takes place on the eve of theRenaissance, when the old controls would be broken and a new conception ofthe relationship between the individual and the world would come intobeing. The filmclearly aligns with the class of literary adaptations to film, especiallyadaptations of dense works that would be considered difficult to translateinto film terms. The Name of the Rose. This desire for escape is a strong factor in the prison films thatKiss of the Spider Woman invokes, though the concept of escape in this filmis broader and serves as a metaphor for an escape from an oppressivegovernment or from the oppressive regime of the universe at large.Valentin specifically makes fun of the very idea of escape through storiesor dreams, though that is precisely the type of escape offered by film andby many of the arts. This implies thatthe reader has considerable time to indulge in these pastimes, while theviewer of a film does not. The two men are isolated in thesocial order, one a homosexual in a society where that it illegal, theother a revolutionary who wants to overthrow that same system. The movies are all older films andshow that there is a generational gap between the two men, and in additionthere is a social gap that means that Molina would know about films thatValent?n would be less likely to have experienced in his social milieu.Yet, Valent?n becomes very enamored of the game of telling the movies, forit passes the time on the one hand and involves him with another world onthe other. This was a time of turmoil, andall over Europe the Church is persecuting members of the Fraticelli,followers of a lapsed Franciscan monk. Some of that knowledge was forbidden, while other aspectsof that knowledge were to be offered as the truth and to be followed by allbelievers. The Name of the Rose. The relationship between fear and laughter in Umberto Eco's The Nameof the Rose is a contrast between an idea of freedom and the power ofcoercion. This does not really work very well as an approach, and forthat matter, when it comes right down to it, needed explanations are stillnot given. The story is told by Adso, a young acolyteat the monastery. The plot seems simple enough--a murder mystery set in aBenedictine monastery in the fourteenth century--but the telling of thestory is more important than the story itself. This may necessitate another consideration ofeverything that has gone before, again in light of this new information. This works well in the novel, but it does not work well in the film. That which evokes laughter challenges the powerand doctrine of the leadership, that doctrine which maintains order andespecially maintains the power of the Church. The murders seem to be following a pattern based on the Book ofRevelations. The theater meets the filmwhen images from the film are seen--the Jewish men unloading a truck,evoking images of wartime Paris; the Spider Woman in a cabaret setting,with a spider-web design behind her; the strange criminals who watch fromtheir car; and so on. Molina istruly a man who has not been able to fit into society in any meaningfulway. Asemiotic analysis of the internal film reminds the analyst of Hollywoodproductions with Maria Montez or some other exotic star, with the settingbeing not the real Latin America but an echo of the way Hollywood presentsEuropean cities during the war. Intertextuality is defined as a by-produce of the semiotic approachto film, and it questions realism by emphasizing the coded and constructednature of the film artifact. Even as arevolutionary dedicated to overthrowing society, Valent?n is more a memberof that society than is Molina. There is also a dialogue herebetween reality and illusion, between the real world and the film world,between the lives these men really live and the lives they see in the filmsdescribed by Molina. For one thing, thepolitical struggle in The Kiss of the Spider Woman is one we all understandon the important level, while the political struggles of the thirteenthcentury are too far removed and take place around ideas that are tooesoteric for most to comprehend quickly. The film can also be identified with the prisongenre, gay film genre, the film noir style of the 194 s, and the politicaldrama genre. Lost in the film version is the intimacy of the relationshipbetween the two men, for while in the book nothing is heard but their twovoices, in the film we also see them and their fantasies brought to lifeand placed in a real cell in the real world. He reveals to Valent?n in fact that he is not even drawn especiallyto his homosexual friends, for he seeks a real man rather than anotherhomosexual and could not fall in love with a homosexual. Baskerville does ultimately solve the mystery anddiscover the murderer, but in the course of this discovery the abbey isburned to the ground, along with the offending manuscript and all othermanuscripts in the library. The forbidden knowledge is at the core of the mystery in TheName of the Rose, and in the end the forbidden knowledge is revealed in alengthy philosophical discussion between the investigator and the murderer. The filmis visually interesting, with the monastery presenting the viewer with aworld he or she has probably never seen, but again the way the film isstructured makes much of this newness confusing. Some of the more outr?aspects of their living arrangement are emphasized much more than theycould be on the printed page, especially when the novelist stands back andlets his characters speak for themselves. There is little of this in the film, and what there is tendsto be confusing or obscure. Molina can satisfy his desires through his imaginationand by acting those desires out, while Valent?n is tied to the real worldand can only escape so far through drama. In the film of Manuel Puig's novel Kiss of the Spider Woman, two menshare a cell in a Buenos Aires prison. The primary issues of the novel concern degrees of controlexerted over the individual and over society as a whole. The dramatic impact emerges from the interplay of these elements andfrom the tension between the generic expectations of the viewer and themore elevated philosophic discussions between the two men. It is in the course of theseretellings of the different films that the viewer gets to know thesecharacters and sees how they develop as they interact with one another andwith the images recalled from films by Molina. This is the background. Soon we learn that Molina has revealed nothing that he haslearned to the authorities, presumably because of the relationship he iscreating with Valent?n. Many films are overtly self-referential,associating their plots with the act of filmmaking itself. Twosuch movies which reflect on art and politics and the juncture between thetwo are Kiss of the Spider Woman (Babenco, 1985) and The Name of the Rose(Annaud, 1986). The film versionis a big-budget commercial picture that tries to give the illusion ofintellectual power while in truth reveling more in blood and thunder. The actor, Molina, is fancifuland living in his memory and imagination; the audience, Valent?n, is arealist who tries to keep the fancies of Molina within acceptable bounds.Valent?n says there is to be no discussion of food or of naked women,clearly because both create desires within him that cannot be fulfilled inthis small cell. The Emperor issupporting the Fraticelli precisely in order to undermine the power of theChurch. The reader is thus constantly urged to reconsider all impressionsgathered of the two men and their relationship. Church doctrineextended far beyond religious matters as we would define them today. The filmalludes to a variety of film types and has a film-within-a-film structure,with the internal film referencing the genres of the war film and the filmnoir. Until that point,the reader sees the two men as precisely what they say they are--two menimprisoned for quite different crimes and merely happening to be in thesame cell and trying to make the best of it. The film connects withthe genre of gay-themed works through the flamboyance and costumes ofMolina, with the political drama through the speeches and demeanor ofValent?n, with the musical through the Spider Woman and her films, and soon. The film's way of making references and evokingideas and associations through symbolism and other means has to beaccomplished quickly, and the viewer has to be given more information so heor she will get these references immediately. In both, though, the motif ofescape is strong, with Valent?n trying to escape the tyranny of hissociety, Molina trying to escape his dual sexual identity, both men seekingescape from their cell, and so on. There is an attempt to introduce the audienceto various knowledge through the character of William of Baskerville'sassistant, who is presented more as a modern young person dropped into themedieval world and in need of explanations of various things and ideasencountered. He had advocated total poverty, a move that is fearedbecause it might undermine the authority of the Church. The filmspecifically makes use of the idea of popular art as an escape from thereal world yet at the same time turns the idea on its head by presentingmen who cannot escape from their real lives no matter how hard they try.Popular art is thought of as insubstantial, but these men find deep meaningin their experience of such art and suggest how such experience often seemsmore real than reality. The book is, as noted, a game, a puzzle, andthe reader is expected to "play along" by analyzing the issues,deconstructing the symbolism, and coming to conclusions. Much of the politics of the Churchis also lost in the transition, and what remains is confusing because of anuncertainty as to what sides there are in the various disputes. It is also evident that this film connectsto texts from the theater, for as a film, this one tends toward theatricalconversation and gesture as much as filmic image. A retelling of the plot of the story does not give a true sense ofthe style. The true nature of theirbeing cell mates is revealed in the middle of the novel. Eco fills the book withreference to literature, art, philosophy, and other cultural artifacts.The philosophical battle between Baskerville and the murderer takes up muchof the latter portion of the novel, and the fact that the entire talehinges on the importance of what we would consider a benign philosophicalwork, Aristotle's Poetics, adds to the irony of the novel while also makingthe reader think seriously about the meaning of intellectual freedom andthe spirit of inquiry that motivates Baskerville and fills the murdererwith dread. 1986.Babenco, Hector. The book depends on the ability of readers to stop and think aboutwhat they are reading and to make connections among various elements--discussions of ancient manuscripts, descriptions of medieval architecture,philosophical arguments, and so on. Thefilm seems much like a play as we see the two men in their enclosed stagearea, with Molina acting out all the parts. The Spider Woman herself becomes a powerful evocationof this other world, which in some ways is more real than the real world.For the viewer, the textures of "reality" and film are blurred given thatthe reality seen here is also a film. The contrast between the two men suggests something about art and ourresponse to art, showing that the same artifact can have very differenteffects for different viewers. Itwould be impossible to create a film version of the novel that included thedensity of the book or that explained all the facets of medieval life asdoes the book, though it would be possible to give some sense of theunderlying intellectual arguments which are so important to the conclusionof the novel. While Kiss of the Spider Woman derives from thegenre of adaptations of novels to film, it does not try to "open out" themain story much more than the play version would have done and instead usesthe idea of isolation and enclosure to draw the viewer into the world ofthese men more directly. The film does seem to be seeking a way to visualize thewritten word, and this creates a certain tension outside of the actions andthe characters themselves. The scenes of the Spider Woman singing in the cabaret referback to the German films of Marlene Dietrich, though the era evoked islater, more likely the early 194 s than the late 192 s and early 193 s. Some ofthis has been noted above. At the same time, there is more happening in thefilm. The film is highly theatrical, as is seen immediately in the wayMolina acts out the movie and "becomes" the Spider Woman as he speaks. Theabbey is in turmoil because of the death of a monk, and the monk wasmurdered. The novel explains the ramifications of theology andthe relationships among the different elements of the Church, while thefilm skirts the issue and leaves the viewer confused about who is who andwhy they behave as they do. One is Molina, a homosexualsentenced to eight years in prison for the corruption of minors, and theother is Valent?n, a young Marxist imprisoned for revolutionary activities. Of necessity, the film is not as dense or as profound as the book andcannot be, for to capture the essence of all the symbolism and all therelationships among different discourses in the novel, the film would haveto be many hours long at a minimum. It justruins the emotion." As the relationship develops, Molina is drawn more and more into therevolutionary sphere of Valent?n. This manuscript is referred to asa dangerous codex. It includes material referring tosuch discourses as medievalism, archaeology, anthropology, religiouspainting and iconography, reading, freedom of thought, and restrictions onthought and action imposed by an outside force, in this case the Catholicchurch. While the underlying purpose of theauthor is quite serious, the manner of presentation is not as Eco makes useof all manner of linguistic devices and aesthetic interconnections tocreate an experience that is intellectually challenging. Art is thus seen as responding not to realitybut to other discourses. The murders that take place and all the intrigue and fear generated in thenovel come about so that this forbidden knowledge, as embodied inAristotle's second book of poetics, the book discussing comedy andlaughter, can be kept secret. Placing thetwo in the same cell is an overt form of the dialogism described byBakhtin, and the way the two men interact with external texts representedby the films Molina recalls in vivid detail. In Chapter 8, the readerlearns that this is not true and that Molina was deliberately planted inthe cell to gather information. Hall, 1984.Puig, Manuel. The reader is forced at this point toreconsider everything that Molina has said, in essence to reconsider thosewords to see if they have had a double meaning or if more of Molina isrevealed in these words than one might have been able to see on firstreading. When a novel is translated into film,there is always some condensation and rearrangement of material. Often suchassociations have a wider significance and relate the work of art to thebroader question of what constitutes art and how art is expressed. Valent?n says that the storyhelps pass the time, while Molina considers it "fabulous" and "beautiful."This raises another difference between the two--Molina believes Valent?n ismore the intellectual, while he, Molina, is more the emotional person wholives vicariously through his stories. Laughter is equated with alack of control, a lack of dedication, a lack of seriousness, and fear isthe means to enforce control, dedication, and seriousness. Humor is an important component in human life, but it is seen asa dangerous one as well. Molina clearly wishes to escape from the external real world justas from the cell. Molina tries to pass the time by telling the younger man about films hehas seen, recreating the stories with words. The library of the monastery is central to the case--themonks there copy manuscripts with painstaking detail, and it is soonapparent that there are secret books in the library that someone would killto protect, or to keep away from others. A film can be both an emotional exerciseand an intellectual challenge at one and the same time, and every image haselements addressing both aspects of the experience of art. Baskerville is asked to take over the investigation--as anoutsider, he will have a fresh eye, and he also has a reputation for beingable to solve puzzles of this sort. More monks aremurdered before he can accomplish this task. The two men are set up as different types, not just as revolutionaryand homosexual, but as audience and actor. Considering this film from the standpoint of its intertextuality, itis apparent that the film aligns with several different genres, at least insome degree, and with various other kinds of text as well. After Valent?n istortured, he nurtures him even more directly and reveals that he has beencommissioned to seek answers about the revolutionary group but that he hasnot given any information to the other side and will not do so. Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose is set in a Benedictine abbey inNorthern Italy in the fourteenth century. The film takes place in adiscrete period of time, and the viewer cannot stop to think things over orto look anything up. As Molina says, "I don't explain my movies. Molina, on the other hand, says that that sort ofescape is fine for him and that until someone manages to open the door forhim, his movie is all the escape he needs. The external world is given an image in the formof the film-within-a-film, making the external world less real. The other notables have not yetarrived, and he is to solve this crime before they do. The purpose ofthe novel is to defend humor and its importance in human affairs, and thisis seen as a modern conception, one against which the medieval world in theform of the murderer fights against to protect the control exerted byinstitutions like the Church. Thechurch controlled every aspect of life in some degree and claimed to haveall knowledge. Over the course of thefilm, the two men become much closer, developing a friendship they would beunlikely to have in the "real" world outside of prison. Questions that wereanswered in the book as a matter of course are ignored altogether in thefilm, and ultimately even the central mystery plot has a large number ofloose ends that are not tied together as they should be. Work CitedAnnaud, Jean-Jacques. Those who seek to keep this secret do so outof fear--they fear what will happen if laughter is allowed to be loosedfreely upon the world. The Kiss of the Spider Woman. After all, they arenot recreations of the styles but rather memories of the character ofMolina, reshaped by his own flair for the dramatic and for romance. The meaning of the conclusion is lost in the imposedpyrotechnics of a miniature Inquisition and in uncertainty on the part ofthe viewer as to why all this took place and precisely what it was themurderer wanted. Island Alive, 1985.Eco, Umberto. For one thing, the life of the medieval Church is alien to theaudience of today. The way these genres mix and interact leaves only echoes of eachgenre, for the film does not fulfill directly and completely theexpectations raised in the viewer by these different genres. The Kiss of the Spider Womanwould have to be judged the more coherent and effective film of the two forthese reasons. He was burned at the stake sometwenty years before. The film version of the novel (and the play that Puig also wrote) ismore explicit about the death of Molina and the probable survival ofValent?n. He has had no political leanings at allbefore this, except to protect his own prerogatives as a homosexual in asociety that looks down on such people. The setting isartificial in that it brings together two people from different classbackgrounds and with very different views of the world, holds them togetherover a long period of time, and leads to a rapprochement that might nevertake place in the outside world. The wall Molina has decorated also evokes Hollywood images, andthere is a stark contrast between the small cell where Valent?n sweats inthe hear and the bathroom in which we first see the Spider Woman, cleansedand cool. New York: Vintage, 1979. However, it does so in a way that undercuts any memories the viewermight have of either, for these sequences are arch in style, overacted andoften with characterizations that are over the top. The novel is structured around play and games, with the authorbuilding a wide variety of medieval references, Christian symbolism, andforms of word-play into the fabric of the book in a very complex pattern.The power of the Church stands at the center of the novel. He is to assist the newly arrived Guglielmo daBaskerville, sent to act as mediator between the forces of tolerance andthe Pope's inquisitor, who is stopping at the abbey on his way South. Boston, Massachusetts: G.K. Kiss of the Spider Woman. Too much has to be explained to keep the viewer in tune with the picture,and much of this explanation is curtailed or skipped altogether. The Name of the Rose is a good one to use to analyze intertextualitybecause the source material, Umberto Eco's novel, is overtly semiotic instructure. Both films began as novels and so connect with other filmsproduced on that basis and connect in a broader sense with the forms andpurposes of the novel. Ideas about both emerge from the generic expectationsraised and from the way images are presented and issues discussed in thetext of this film as it connects with other texts, real and implied. Thefilm may also be associated with and in part explained by reference toother discourses, such as politics, law, social issues, and so on. The primary intertextual dialogue in the film is with the traditionalmystery story, and the film has trappings that connect it directly to thatform of storytelling. This says muchabout the nature of the society of the time and about the fear thatpervaded the Church itself, the fear that there were forces endangeringcontrol and that the imposition of fear on the populace was essential tomaintaining control. When theviewer is finally taken outside the prison cell when Molina is released,the real world is a shock, so very different from the film world Molina hasevoked. Molina is indeed a prisoner, but he istrying to win his release by finding out what he can about the terroristgroup from which Valent?n has come. Molina sees the film as ameaningless but beautiful fantasy; Valent?n believes it is political, ananti-Semitic film. Neither escapes for more than atemporary period. This mixture of real and imaginary is evident from the first momentas we hear Molina describing the Spider Woman in great detail, evoking aworld and an idea far from the enclosed space in which he and Valent?n arefound. In TheKiss of the Spider Woman, the connections to other texts are just asimportant but are accomplished clearly in the visuals and in the dialogue.The viewer can better appreciate the deeper meanings in the story, whilemany of these are lost in The Name of the Rose. Molina tells the storyof movie after movie to pass the time. The reality of these two men is evoked for the viewer throughspecific symbols associated with different genres and dramatic recreations,especially the cell, the bars, the lock, the bunks, the small windowthrough which the men can see outside, and so on. The screenplay tries to simplify matters by reducing the number ofmurders, but also lost in this process is the image of William ofBaskerville peeling away layers of meaning until he finds the true meaninghidden in the turmoil of the monastery. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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