In 1992 P.D. James surprised her affectionate crime fiction reading public by issuing a visionary dystopia: The Children of Men. From a thematic point of view, this science fiction novel focuses precisely on the problem of re-generation, since it deals with an utterly hopeless near future where the humankind has become entirely infertile. The novel opens with the news that the last human being to be born on earth, aged 25, was killed in a pub fight in Buenos Aires. The fact is recorded by the main character, Theo Farrel, a fiftiesh professor of Victorian history, who is writing a depressing diary of his life which, in his intention, is also a report of the world’s last days. “Man is diminished if he lives without knowledge of his past”, Theo writes but “without hope of a future he becomes a beast”. This statement is, in my opinion, the conceptual engine of the whole novel, where P.D. James wonderfully exploits the opportunities of the genre in order to discuss troubling topics. As readers we are haunted by questions on the disputable ways this scientifically advanced society deals with human reproduction and death, or on the dangers of unscrupulous uses of science by some kind of political powers to force their will on human beings. But even though I find the themes of the novel extremely fascinating, my aim in this paper is that of showing how, from a media point of view, P.D. James’s text has been re-generated in its film adaptation by Alfonso Cuarón (2006). I believe that any ‘adaptation’, a word in itself rich in scientific suggestions, can be seen as “a dynamic process of re-constitution on a different level which is essential to life”, to quote the AIA Cultural Studies CfP. In the case here under scrutiny a Mexican director has literally re-generated an English novel by re-constituting on screen its geo/gender politics, as I hope to demonstrate through a close comparison between the novel and the film.
Pennacchia, M. (2012). L’adattamento filmico come rigenerazione del testo romanzesco: The Children of Men da P.D. James ad Alfonso Cuarón. In Di Michele L (a cura di), Regenerating Community, Territory, Voices: Memory and Vision (pp. 289-302). Napoli : Liguori.
L’adattamento filmico come rigenerazione del testo romanzesco: The Children of Men da P.D. James ad Alfonso Cuarón
PENNACCHIA, MADDALENA
2012-01-01
Abstract
In 1992 P.D. James surprised her affectionate crime fiction reading public by issuing a visionary dystopia: The Children of Men. From a thematic point of view, this science fiction novel focuses precisely on the problem of re-generation, since it deals with an utterly hopeless near future where the humankind has become entirely infertile. The novel opens with the news that the last human being to be born on earth, aged 25, was killed in a pub fight in Buenos Aires. The fact is recorded by the main character, Theo Farrel, a fiftiesh professor of Victorian history, who is writing a depressing diary of his life which, in his intention, is also a report of the world’s last days. “Man is diminished if he lives without knowledge of his past”, Theo writes but “without hope of a future he becomes a beast”. This statement is, in my opinion, the conceptual engine of the whole novel, where P.D. James wonderfully exploits the opportunities of the genre in order to discuss troubling topics. As readers we are haunted by questions on the disputable ways this scientifically advanced society deals with human reproduction and death, or on the dangers of unscrupulous uses of science by some kind of political powers to force their will on human beings. But even though I find the themes of the novel extremely fascinating, my aim in this paper is that of showing how, from a media point of view, P.D. James’s text has been re-generated in its film adaptation by Alfonso Cuarón (2006). I believe that any ‘adaptation’, a word in itself rich in scientific suggestions, can be seen as “a dynamic process of re-constitution on a different level which is essential to life”, to quote the AIA Cultural Studies CfP. In the case here under scrutiny a Mexican director has literally re-generated an English novel by re-constituting on screen its geo/gender politics, as I hope to demonstrate through a close comparison between the novel and the film.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
