Mortelle traversée : The Comfort of Stangers, roman de Ian McEwan (1981), scénario de Harold Pinter (1989) et film de Paul Shrader (1990)

Études Britanniques Contemporaines

关键词: adaptation;    The Comfort of Strangers;    crossings;    Death in Venice;    intermediality;    intertextuality;   

DOI  :  10.4000/ebc.2100

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In The Comfort of Strangers (1981), his second novel, Ian McEwan rewrites in his own way the hackneyed literary trope of the trip to Italy: two young English tourists, Colin and Mary, go back to Venice (never named) to rekindle their lukewarm passion. To the crossing between Great Britain and Italy and the disorientation they feel is added an in-depth self-examination of their desires and fantasies which are usually well hidden under their cultural and intellectual veneer. It will not stand the test of the defamiliarisation they experience as they cross over into another world. The city and its inhabitants, whom they are morbidly fascinated by, will be deadly for the couple. Death In Venice which, without ever being explicitly quoted, could very well be the subtitle of the novel. At the same time, another kind of crossing, dealing with intermediality, will be considered. Pinter’s cinematic adaptation of the novel for Paul Shrader and some of the devices used by the screenwriter will be studied. The crossing from a country, a culture, to another one is seen not so much as enriching but as a “brutality”, as the epigraphic quotation from Cesare Pavese, from which the novel is titled, makes clear.

【 授权许可】

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