Slacker Joyce: James Joyce, Richard Linklater, and the Silent Re-Canonization of The
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Slacker Joyce: James Joyce, Richard Linklater, and the Silent Re-Canonization of the Masterpiece By Layne M. Farmen A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Liberal Arts Department of Verbal and Visual Arts College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida St. Petersburg Major Professor: Dr. Starks-Estes, Ph.D. Dr. Armstrong, Ph.D. Dr. Hallock, Ph.D. Date of Approval: October 26, 2016 Keywords: Modernism, Richard Linklater, James Joyce, Adaptation theory, Appropriation, Film studies. Copyright © 2016, Layne M. Farmen ii Table of Contents List of Tables--------------------------------------------------------------------------------iv List of Figures-------------------------------------------------------------------------------v Abstract--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------vi Introduction: Grasping Hands with a Bloomsday Champion-------------------------1 Rescuing Joyce From Obscurity-------------------------------------------------9 The “New Pluralism”-------------------------------------------------------------12 Linklater as Appropriator--------------------------------------------------------14 Chapter 1: Dublin/Austin, Authoritative/Constructed--------------------------------18 McHale and Hybridity-----------------------------------------------------------22 Linklater’s Telemachia-----------------------------------------------------------26 Guy Who Tosses Typewriter: Linklater’s Take on Appropriation--------------------------------------------------33 The Bridge from “Day” to “Night”---------------------------------------------36 Night Back into Day--------------------------------------------------------------39 Back to Ithaca: Returning to the Source---------------------------------------39 Chapter 2: Finnegans Waking Life: Rendering the Dreamscape--------------------44 Thematic Connections-----------------------------------------------------------48 Methodological Connections----------------------------------------------------57 The End of the Novel to The End of Cinema---------------------------------59 Chapter 3: Boyhood: A Portrait of the Liberal Arts Student as a Young Man---------------------------------------------------------63 Joyce and Film--------------------------------------------------------------------67 Theme: “Paired Repetitions”----------------------------------------------------68 Drifting Through Life: Time Without Exposition----------------------------75 A New Portrait--------------------------------------------------------------------78 Aesthetics vs. Empathy----------------------------------------------------------81 Robert Spoo, and the “Nightmare of History”--------------------------------82 Portraits, Problems----------------------------------------------------------------84 Conclusion: Impossible to Learn How to Plow by Watching Films----------------88 Drawing out the Rhizomatic----------------------------------------------------92 Joycean Production/Ricorso-----------------------------------------------------93 iii The End of Straight Adaptation?-----------------------------------------------95 From Dublin to Austin-----------------------------------------------------------97 Works Cited-------------------------------------------------------------------------------100 Notes---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------105 iv List of Tables Table 1: Verbs, Episodes, Films------------------------------------------------------------------90 Table 2N: Paired Repetitions--------------------------------------------------------------------111 Table 3N: Exposition Free Transitions---------------------------------------------------------113 v List of Figures Figure 1: First Dialogue----------------------------------------------------------------------------25 Figure 2: Coffee Shop------------------------------------------------------------------------------30 Figure 3: Batman T-shirt---------------------------------------------------------------------------31 Figure 4: Bush Basher------------------------------------------------------------------------------31 Figure 5: Conspiracy Theorist--------------------------------------------------------------------32 Figure 6: Boat Captain-----------------------------------------------------------------------------53 Figure 7: Gas Station Worker---------------------------------------------------------------------53 Figure 8: Boat Passenger--------------------------------------------------------------------------54 Figure 9: Pinball Player----------------------------------------------------------------------------54 Figure 10: Jesse and Celine------------------------------------------------------------------------55 Figure 11: Dazed------------------------------------------------------------------------------------55 Figure 12: Mason Alone---------------------------------------------------------------------------71 Figure 13: Mason and Samantha------------------------------------------------------------------71 Figure 14: Samantha 1-----------------------------------------------------------------------------74 Figure 15: Samantha 2-----------------------------------------------------------------------------74 Figure 16: Samantha 3-----------------------------------------------------------------------------74 vi Abstract The filmography of Austinite Richard Linklater (as in, one that comes from Austin, Texas) is incredibly Joycean, and my argument is that Linklater makes Joyce’s work contemporary in both the realms of independent and big studio film-making. He is the greatest interpreter of Joyce in the 21st century, and he never mentions his name. Linklater both introduces Joycean themes to mainstream audiences who would never dream of taking on Ulysses, and encourages those familiar with Joyce to take a second look. Whether the best way to “save” Joyce study is through a focus on the source texts or their appropriations, Linklater chooses both options to great measure. While the regression into naming literary periods is somewhat cliché, Linklater demonstrates the malleable nature of the modernist text by “making it new” formally and ideologically. Linklater is extending the modernist project (specifically Joyce’s) by using explicit symbols and references to Joyce’s work, but with an entirely new form. Using the framework of adaptation provided by Linda Hutcheon in her seminal text A Theory of Adaptation will show that Linklater’s adaptation of Joyce is successful. However, in a stark difference to many of the adaptations discussed by Hutcheon in her text, Linklater’s appropriations are hidden by a shroud of interpretation and thus, the Joycean connections have never been discussed at length. What Linklater has done with Joyce is reminiscent vii of what Joyce did with Homer. One should remember that Joyce intentionally removed the chapter headings to Ulysses, shrouding for his audience the systemization of his own text. Linklater does the same with the work of Joyce across all of his films, but most specifically with Slacker, Waking Life, and Boyhood. 1 Introduction: Grasping Hands With a Bloomsday Champion “Today 16 of June 1924 twenty years after. Will anybody remember this date”—James Joyce1 “…I mean there’s just this one instant, and that’s what we’re always in. And then she tells me that actually this is the narrative of everyone’s life—that, you know, behind the phenomenal difference, there is but one story, and that’s the story of moving from the ‘no’ to the ‘yes.’ All of life is like, ‘No thank you, no thank you, no thank you.’ Then, ultimately, it’s, ‘Yes, I give in. Yes, I accept. Yes, I embrace.’ I mean, that’s the journey— I mean, everyone gets to the ‘yes’ in the end, right?”—Waking Life2 “Joyce, is good. He is a good writer. People like him because he is incomprehensible and anybody can understand him”—Gertrude Stein3 Hailing from Austin, Texas, filmmaker Richard Linklater is perhaps the best interpreter of Modernist icon James Joyce that is working today. Intertextually standing on the shoulders of a literary giant, Linklater grasps hands with a Bloomsday champion to stage epics in a new, thrice-removed venue. The Ithacan hero of epic tradition has leaped from the ancient manuscript to the modernist novel, and now makes his way to the silver screen; Ithaca begat Dublin begat Austin (Texas). 2 While the regression into naming literary periods is somewhat cliché, Linklater demonstrates the malleable nature of the modernist text by “making it new” formally and ideologically. Linklater is extending the modernist project (specifically Joyce’s) by using explicit symbols and references to Joyce’s work, but with an entirely new form. Using the framework of adaptation provided by Linda Hutcheon in her seminal text A Theory of Adaptation will show that Linklater’s adaptation of Joyce is successful in that he does not appeal to “fidelity” to an original source, but instead to his own “creative autonomy” (20- 21).4 I am in complete agreement with Hutcheon and will make even more explicit the claim hinted at here and throughout her Theory of Adaptation: Fidelity to the source text in an adaptation is not criteria of success, but the first sign of failure.5 However, in a stark difference to many of the adaptations discussed by Hutcheon in her text, Linklater’s appropriations are hidden by a shroud of interpretation and thus, the Joycean connections have never been discussed at length. What Linklater has done with