Borges in Hollywood: from Art House to Blockbuster Cinema
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
BORGES IN HOLLYWOOD: FROM ART HOUSE TO BLOCKBUSTER CINEMA A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Spanish and Portuguese By Monica Sumihar Simorangkir, M.S. Washington, DC October 27, 2017 Copyright 2017 by Monica Sumihar Simorangkir All Rights Reserved ii BORGES IN HOLLYWOOD: FROM ART HOUSE TO BLOCKBUSTER CINEMA Monica Sumihar Simorangkir, M.S. Thesis Advisor: Gwen Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This dissertation examines Jorge Luis Borges’s influence on contemporary cinema. I postulate that cinematic appropriations of Borges are shifting from art house to blockbuster films, facilitated partly by postmodern disruption of aesthetic hierarchies. First I analyze Christopher Nolan’s films Memento (2000) and Inception (2010) to represent the shift from art house to mainstream Hollywood. Then I analyze Diego Paszkowski’s novel Tesis sobre un homicidio (1998) and Hernán Goldfrid’s film adaptation (2013) to represent the domestic market that regards Borges as a national cultural referent. I examine and compare the treatment of Borges in both novel and film, which are laden with Hollywood references, including Inception ’s influence on Goldfrid’s film. In the selected works Borges appears as an element of pastiche , which I broadly define as a collage of discordant elements that draws from past styles. I identify postmodernism as the cultural movement that motivates contemporary cinematic appropriations of Borges. Although I do not share Fredric Jameson’s negative stance toward postmodern culture, I employ his Marxist theories on postmodernism as the cultural dominant of late capitalism to conceptualize pastiche as a marketing strategy. I propose that contemporary cinematic pastiches of Borges signal a film industry desperate to overcome exhausted narrative forms. I argue that the pastiche of Borges in the selected works is motivated by the desire to capitalize on his cultural capital and explore new modes of narration. It yields a new type of iii Hollywood blockbuster, a marketable hybrid of art house and mainstream entertainment that allows Inception to preserve the intellectual sensibilities in Memento . For the domestic market, it attracts a Borges-informed audience while allowing the film to honor a celebrated author. I review other critical perspectives to address Jameson’s concerns about the blurred high/low culture division and highlight the positive implications of a cinematic pastiche of Borges. I conclude that Borges inspires innovative film narratives; in turn, commercially successful film adaptations of Borges keep his work relevant and expand his reader base to include never before accessible markets. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted, first and foremost, to my thesis advisor Dr. Gwen Kirkpatrick. It was her seminar on Borges that initiated everything. I am most thankful for her guidance, patience, enthusiasm, and constant encouragement, not only during the thesis writing process, but throughout my entire academic career at Georgetown. I wish to thank my committee for their invaluable mentorship. Dr. Emily Francomano, your course on Adaptation laid the groundwork for my dissertation. Dr. Patricia Vieira, your courses on film and philosophy helped shape the way I think critically about cinema. Dr. Sergio Waisman, I admire you as a professor and a Borges scholar. I would like to extend my gratitude to all the professors in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, who in one form or another taught me how to become a better scholar, teacher, and colleague. I am forever grateful to Dr. Veronica Salles-Reese, who believed that I belonged in the Ph.D. program and encouraged me to apply when I was in my first semester in the master’s degree program. She also granted me the incredible opportunity to study at Javeriana University in Bogotá, Colombia for one semester in 2012. Dr. Adam Lifshey, your courses are the epitome of thinking outside the box. And thank you for volunteering to be the go-to guy for academic career advice for us graduate students. Dr. Ronald Leow, thank you for teaching me how to become a better educator for my students. I cannot thank Dr. Erick Langer enough for inviting me to participate on a panel on New Perspectives on Jorge Luis Borges alongside prominent Borges scholars. And Dr. Edward Maloney from the English Department, your course on The Postmodern American Novel was an eye-opener for me. I must also thank my graduate student colleagues for their camaraderie and friendship. A special mention goes to Ashley Caja, Ana María Ferreira, Montserrat Lau, Maisha Mitchell, Anthony Perry, and Zaya Rustamova for their constant moral support and solidarity; Denise Kripper and Patricia Soler for the motivating pep talks during the last stage of my writing; and María José Navia, with whom I co-taught a course on Latin American Film and who shares my love of popular culture. This dissertation would not have been possible without the unwavering support of my family. I owe my love of reading and watching movies to my parents, who filled my childhood with books and family movie nights. They also taught me to value education above all. My sister Debbie and brothers David and Patrick have a contagious zest for life and I’d like to think that some of it rubbed off on me. Lastly, words cannot express how grateful I am to my husband Stevano, who is a constant source of inspiration to me. I could not have made this journey without him. My happy place is watching a good scary movie with him at home, surrounded by our dogs. He is my rock and he makes me laugh on my grayest days. This dissertation is dedicated to him. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER I: STRANGE COUSINS IN MEMENTO : LITERATURE AND CINEMA, BORGES AND HOLLYWOOD ...................................................................................................................10 1.1. Borges and Postmodernism ....................................................................................................12 1.2. Western Reception of Borges .................................................................................................21 1.3. Borges and/in Hollywood ....................................................................................................... 23 i) Borges as a “highfalutin reference” in Hollywood ........................................................ 24 ii) The appeal of Borges’s “incredibly bizarre philosophical concepts” ideas to Hollywood ......................................................................................................................... 27 iii) “Digestible” Borges fiction for Hollywood consumption ........................................... 29 1.4. The Postmodern Neo-Noir Borgesian Detective in Memento ................................................ 33 CHAPTER II: HOLLYWOOD AND BORGES IN INCEPTION : A CASE OF MUTUAL CROSS-CULTURAL DECANONIZATION ..............................................................................54 2.1. From Off-Kilter to Blockbuster, or Somewhere in Between ..................................................58 2.2. Borgesian Palimpsests ............................................................................................................67 2.3. Time and Space: Postmodern Concerns .................................................................................72 2.4. Reality or Dream?: Postmodern Tension ................................................................................87 CHAPTER III: GEOGRAPHIC DISPLACEMENTS IN DIEGO PASZKOWSKI’S NOVEL TESIS SOBRE UN HOMICIDIO ..................................................................................................99 3.1. The Rejection of Realism in Borges’s Fiction: Implications ...............................................103 3.2. Borges and Metaphysical/Postmodern Detective Fiction .................................................... 108 3.3. Borges and the Argentine Mystery Writing Tradition ......................................................... 115 v 3.4. The Detective and the Borgesian Intellectual Duel ............................................................. 122 3.5. The Unreliable Narrator(s) and the Theme of the Double ................................................... 127 i) The unreliable narrator(s) ............................................................................................ 129 ii) The theme of the double ............................................................................................. 132 3.6. The Justice Theme: Deviation from Borges ........................................................................ 136 3.7. The City ............................................................................................................................... 144 CHAPTER IV: BORGES AS AUTHOR-COMMODITY: HERNÁN GOLDFRID’S FILM TESIS SOBRE UN HOMICIDIO .................................................................................................152 4.1. Resistance and Anxiety of Influence ...................................................................................154 4.2. Borgesian Hypertextual Traces ............................................................................................ 161 4.3. The Unreliable Narrator(s) and the Theme of the Double ..................................................