Feature Film as a Literary Work

Abstrakt

The relationships between feature film and literature are typically conceptualized from the perspective of film adaptations. Although numerous shared points between them are noticeable, typically feature films are not treated as literary works tout court.
The paper focuses on the difference between the medium and literature, which allows us to look at any feature film as literature in the film medium. “Empirical media studies” (U. Saxer, W. Faulstich) provides the methodological foundation for the paper, and three representative examples are discussed. The first two are extremely different from each other: a feature film preceding a novel (Alien by R. Scott and Alien by A.D. Foster), and the opposite variant, i.e. a feature film based on a novel in the book medium (Barry Lyndon by S. Kubrick and The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon by W.M. Thackeray). The third example (Love Story by A. Hiller and Love Story by E. Segal) is intermediate: the feature film and the novel were released at the same time (Segal wrote the novel based on his ownscenario during the production of the film). The examples analyzed, together with theoretical considerations, show that it is not the so-called “language of film” that makes a film a work of art, but its “literary-logical continuum” (Faulstich), which supports the thesis that all literature is mediated, and that traditional considerations regarding film adaptation should include the issue of literary media to a greater extent.