Peter Getlík – Communication Today

Meta-Revision: The New Paradigm of Faustian Stories

Peter Getlík — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 17:33:47 +0000

ABSTRACT:
The aim of the study is to introduce and verify the perspective of the “meta-revision” concept for an analysis of adaptations (revisions) in the intermediality discourse. The issue of meta-revisions is presented through evident moral dichotomy in Faustian stories which are frequently adapted in Western culture. Besides many Faustian adaptations that are variable in plot yet traditional in the moral manifestations, we recognise only a few cases that question the exclusivity of conventional Christian ethics. Verification of the concept of “meta-revision” is done especially through the analysis of several film structures, whereas two of them bear significant meta-revisionist features: we identify the meta-revision of cultural self-identification with the hero (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus by Terry Gilliam) and meta-revision of cultural self-identification with the villain (Mephisto by István Szabó; based on the novel by Klaus Mann). As a conclusion of the study the three distinctive aspects of meta-revision applicable in further research on adaptations are defined.

KEY WORDS:
adaptation, Faust, film, intermediality, literature, Mephisto, meta-revision, remediation, revision, theatre

02. GETLIK – ANDRICIKOVA – CT 1-2021 Download

Recursion and Equifinality in Relationship between Film and Theatre: Being John Malkovich

Peter Getlík — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 10:27:22 +0000

ABSTRACT:
The essay focuses on the intersemiotic relationship of film and theatre that inevitably forces a metatextual dialogue of these semiotic systems in artworks. We have chosen the play-element of art to be the centre of our theorising, because we assume that it is often a significant interpretational key to the metatextual dialogue of multiple arts. These metatextual dialogues might be compared to ‘artistic games’. They mix multiple ‘artistic games’ and experiment with the combination of their principles and rules. They are metatextually explaining the rules of ‘artistic games’ during these experiments by revealing the hidden and hiding the obvious. They try to bend some rules and break some rules without spoiling the ‘game’. We observe the types of the play principle in these arts and then we describe behaviour of these semiotic systems through the opposition of recursion and equifinality. We extract models of the theatre fractal and the film net, verifying the legitimacy of this point of view via an analysis of the film Being John Malkovich.

KEY WORDS:
actor, code, equifinality, film, John Malkovich, metatext, play, play principle, recursion, semiotics, text, theatre

08_Getlík_CT-2-2018 Download