COMICS IN MOTION: THE INTERSEMIOTIC TRANSLATION OF COMICS INTO FILM

This paper aims at investigating the ways in which cinema “repeats” and transposes – in a word translates, in an inter-semiotic sense – comics. My analysis will be grounded on an original theoretical approach, combining Descriptive Translation Studies, Glossematics and Generative Semiotics. On the one hand – drawing on Itamar Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory and Gideon Toury’s descriptive translation theory –, I will consider the trans lation of comics into !lm in terms of “acceptability” to the (cinematic) target system, rather than in terms of adequacy or “fidelity” to the (comics) source text. On the other – drawing on Louis Hjelmslev linguistic theory and on Algirdas J. Greimas semiotic theory – I will identify di)erent “levels” of translation, distinguishing among three linguistic planes (expression, content and text). Following these theoretical premises, my paper will be articulated in two parts. First of all, I will try to identify the “norms” and constraints (imposed by the target system) that regulate the acceptability of the cinematic translation of comics. In particular, I will make a distinction among technological/linguistic, economical, and institutional constraints, focusing in particular on the first ones. Through a series of examples, I will thus inves tigate which elements of comics can be translated into !lm, and how. I will identify three di)erent translation processes – duplication, transformation, obliteration –, depending on whether elements of comics succeed in “passing through” the above-mentioned cinematic constraints or are instead deeply transformed, or even “rejected”, by the target system. In the second part of this paper, then, I will outline a taxonomy of the main “translative relations” between comics and cinema, identifying four di)erent intersemiotic levels: the intertextual, the interexpressive, the interdiscoursive, and the intersystemic. I will focus on the main linguistic forms pertaining to each level (quotation, allusion, adaptation), with examples taken from contemporary international film production.