The Sheltering Sky: From Print to Screen

Mariam BedraouiMaster Student

Moroccan American StudiesHassan II University, Casablanca

Outline1. A Few Notes on Adaptation (What? How?

Where and When?)

2. Analysis1. Root Narrative2. Main Thesis3. Illustration

3. Conclusion

A Few Notes on Adaptation “Adaptation is an act of appropriation and this

is always a double process of interpreting and then creating something new.” (Hutcheon: 2006, 20)

The Telling mode The

Showing Mode The

Participatory Mode

Telling Showing

Linguistic Codes(Mc Farlane: 2007: 20) Multiple

CodesLinguist

ic, visual and

aural codes

Cinema- specificcodes

What Happens in the Process of Adaptation?

“Such movement into a new environment is never unimpeded. It necessarily involves processes of representation and institutionalization different from those at the point of origin. This complicates any account of the transplantation, transference, circulation, and commerce of theories and ideas.” (Said: 1987,226)

What Happens in the Process of Adaptation? “In shifting cultures and languages,

adaptations make alterations that reveal much about the larger context of reception and production. Adapters often “indigenize” stories”.

(Hutcheon: 2006, 142)

“Indigenization refers to the process when people pick up or choose what they want to transplant to their own soil. Adapters of travelling stories exert power over what they adapt.”

(Hutcheon: 2006, 147)

The larger context of

reception and production

Exerting power over the

transplanted story

Indigenization

The Sheltering Sky: American Identity between Print

and Screen

The Sheltering Sky: Root Narrative1- Port, kit and Tunner start the

voyage from Tangier.

2- The couple are involved in sexual affairs with other

partners.

3- They move to the desert, and Port insists on getting rid of

Tunner.

6- The couple move further into

the desert and Port experiences the

first signs of disease.

5- Port can not move any further

and Kit nurses him in bed

4- Port died and kit left the place and joined a caravan

7- She becomes a sex slave of a Touareg young

man

8- She is imprisoned and

enjoys his company

9- She decides to leave and is

deported back to Tangier again.

Main Thesis

• Both the novel and film are concerned with exploring the dangerous boundaries of individuality.

• They both make use of a foreign space to allegorise the painful experience of an inner journey.

• However, The journey leads to opposite destinations.

Illustration: Book Cover vs. Film Poster

Illustration: Book Cover Vs. Film Poster

1- Port

Port is • A traveller• Critical• Anti- war• Non-

conformist

2- Port and Kit

The Outing in the Film

Kit’s Journey

Bertolucci’s Comment on the Final Part

“Bertolucci: Yes, my great “betrayal” took place before filming the first night that Kit and Belqassim spend together in the desert. I was standing there next to the dunes, under the moon, looking at the camels and the Tuaregs in the camp site, listening to the flutes, and all of a sudden, I had this feeling of falsehood. At any rate, there was this strong sensation that the last part of the film risked being crushed beneath the weight of cliche. Then, discussing with the Tuaregs I learnt that they deny that rape, or any form of carnal violence , exist in their culture. Theirs is a matrimonial society. So it occurred to me perhaps the end of the book was a kind of fantasy on Bowles’ part. It was not to be taken seriously.”

(Sklarew and al: 2000, 2006)

Mernia

Conclusion The film attenuates the tensions between the

characters. It shifts the focus of themes from a quest for

an individual form of existence to a quest for belonging.

It targets an American domestic audience and falls in line with Hollywood’s romantic adventures.

It nurtures the popular images of the orient revealed in the novel.

It made the novel accessible to a larger audience and reinscribes the story within a collective discourse.

References Bowles, Paul. The Sheltering Sky. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Print.

Cartmell, Deborah, and Imelda Wheelman. The Cambridge Companion to Literature on Screen. Cambridge companions to literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.

Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Kerrigan, Finola. Film Marketing. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann, 2010. Print.

Said, Edward W. The World, the Text, and the Critic. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1983. Print.

Sklarew, Bruce, Jefferson Kline, and Fabien S. Gerard.Bernardo Bertolucci Interviews. Jackson, Miss: University Press of Mississippi, 2000. Print.