Reflections concerning cinematographic adaptation of a literary work

Abstract

Cinema and literature are bound together for as long as the cinema itself exists. When the seventh art noticed its narrative potential, it relied upon an already consecrated way of storytelling, the literature. On the other side, literature, when faced by this new art of movement, not only absorbed into itself much of it, but also realized that could be freed from the task of storytelling since cinema has occupied this space,  and adventure into the field of experimentation. This article has as its aim, through the ideas by some critics – from Jean Epstein, in 1921, to Arlindo Machado, in 2007 –, to make the reader deal with the question concerning literature and cinema throughout the time, seeing how these two arts face and influence each other, thus casting a light on the problem of adapting a literary work for the cinema, a matter which raises great interest to the student of literature, since there is a great number of movies that use a literary text as source.