DUDLEI FLORIANO DE OLIVEIRA CINEMA , RELIGION AND LITERATURE : REVISITING , RECREATING AND RESHAPING JANE AUSTEN ’S PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AS A 21 ST CENTURY COMEDY PORTO ALEGRE 2012 UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL PROGRAMA DE PÓS -GRADUAÇÃO EM LETRAS ÁREA DE ESTUDOS DE LITERATURA ESPECIALIDADE EM LITERATURAS ESTRANGEIRAS MODERNAS ÊNFASE EM LITERATURAS DE LÍNGUA INGLESA CINEMA , RELIGION AND LITERATURE : REVISITING , RECREATING AND RESHAPING JANE AUSTEN ’S PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AS A 21 ST CENTURY COMEDY Dissertação submetida à Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Letras na ênfase Literaturas de Língua Inglesa Mestrando Dudlei Floriano de Oliveira Orientadora: Profª. Dra. Rosalia Angelita Neumann Garcia Porto Alegre 2012 2 Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to thank God for placing me in such a loving and caring family, and for giving me great personal and professional experiences over the past few years. I would like to thank my great-grandmother, Benta de Oliveira, and my grandmothers, Maria Eva de Oliveira and Andira Floriano. Even if formal education was denied to them in their youth, they always made it a priority for my grandfather and for my parents, and this choice has lead to wonderful results. I would like to thank my parents, Carlos William and Nara de Oliveira. They have always been extremely supportive through my academic experience, and, even if I had a hard time understanding their motivations, they always helped me choose not what was good, but the best for me. I would like to thank my wonderful siblings. The boys, Leroi, Andrei and Iohan de Oliveira for their friendship because even though we have very different tastes and interests, that has never been an obstacle to our relationship. And my five sisters, Élie, Melanie, Jessie, Riuana and Raiane, who, just like the five Bennet sisters, are all very different, but add their particularities and personalities to the enjoyment we have as a family. I would also like to thank my UFRGS professors and colleagues. Professor Rosalia Garcia has been wonderful as an advisor, always pushing me enough so that I could learn to improve, and always giving me enough freedom so that I could learn how to grow on my own. Professor Sandra Maggio, with whom I have a long time relationship (she used to teach my mother when she was pregnant with me), has always been a very open and supportive professor, trying her best to help every student she had. And Professor Elaine Indrusiak, who gave me a better understanding of the cinematographic world. I would also like to thank my former classmates DaniellyBatistela, for being a great friend and helper during the period we had classes together, Alan Noronha, the very first classmate I had contact with at UFRGS, and also Leila de Jesus, Alan Fear and Valter Fritsch, who joined the Master’s program with me. I would also like to thank my friends, Jeffrei Moreira, Marcelo Refatti, Thiago Farias and André Luiz Borba, who have been very supportive during the period of my thesis’ development, and also very patient and understanding, because many times I had to refuse their company for the writing of my work. And I would also like to thank Chris Wade, a long-time US American friend 3 and BYU student, who has been very kind in sending me some imported books that were helpful to my work. I would also like to thank many of my professors from FURG, who were extremely important for my literary and linguistic studies, such as Rubelise da Cunha, Tacel Leal, Luciani de Oliveira, Mateus Pereira, Mauro Póvoas, Maria Cristina Brisolara, Oscar Brisolara, Marilei Grantham, Artur Vaz, José Fornos, Antonio Mousquer, Raquel Souza, Sylvie Dion and Rossana Böhlker. I would like to thank Andrew Black, the movie director, for his idea and determination in creating the movie, despite all the struggles, and for being very receptive to me, replying to my e- mails with questions about the movie. I would also like to thank professor Any Raquel and Alexandre Fritzen, for helping me, through music, to cope with the challenges of academic life. And finally, I would like to thank immensely CNPq for the scholarship, which was of tremendous help during my Master’s course. 4 Resumo As obras de Jane Austen são extremamente populares tanto entre leitores comuns e estudiosos de literatura desde a época em que foram publicados, no início do século XIX até os dias de hoje. Tamanha popularidade foi responsável por inúmeras obras de arte, especialmente na literatura e no cinema, que foram ou implicitamente ou explicitamente influenciados pela obra de Austen. Um de seus romances mais adaptados é Orgulho e Preconceito , talvez seu romance mais lido, estudado e adaptado. Um dos motivos para tal apreciação é provavelmente resultado dos valores morais que Jane Austen expõe em seus romances. Estes valores, mesmo duzentos anos mais tarde, permanecem importantes e de grande valor, especialmente na era pós-moderna, quando o excesso de liberdade e alternativas parecem deixar a humanidade mais desprovida de um suporte seguro na vida. Esta é a razão que permite um fã de Austen encontrar na religião um possível diálogo, onde, em um mundo cheio de incertezas, certos códigos morais são as certezas a que alguém pode se segurar. Em 2003, Andrew Black dirigiu o filme Pride and Prejudice: a latter-day comedy 1, uma transposição moderna do romance de Austen, no qual os personagens vão à igreja e estudam em uma universidade religiosa. Meu trabalho busca estabelecer uma relação entre o livro de Jane Austen, o filme de Andrew Black e as questões sobre moralidade e religião, e como o romance e o filme estabelecem uma conexão não apenas em seus elementos de ficção como personagens e enredo, mas principalmente no que diz respeito a uma das possíveis mensagens finais em ambas obras. Palavras-chave: Jane Austen – Orgulho e Preconceito – Cinema – Intertextualidade – Religião – Andrew Black 1 O filme não possui título ou versão oficial em português, mas sua tradução livre seria Orgulho e Preconceito: uma comédia dos últimos dias . 5 Abstract The works of Jane Austen are extremely popular both among average readers and literature scholars from the time they were published, in the early 19 th century until today. Such popularity has been responsible for innumerous works of art, especially in literature and cinema, that were either implicitly or explicitly influenced by Austen’s work. One of her most adapted novels is the 1812 novel Pride and Prejudice , which is perhaps her most read, studied and adapted novel. One of the reasons for such appraisal has probably to do with the moral values Jane Austen exposes in her novels. Those values, even two hundred years later, remain important and of great worth, especially in the postmodern era, when the excess of freedom and alternatives seems to make humanity more deprived of a secure ground in life. This is the reason that allows an Austen fan to find in religion a possible dialogue, where, in a world full of uncertainties, some moral codes are the certainties one can hold onto. In 2003, Andrew Black directed a movie entitled Pride and Prejudice : a latter-day comedy , a transposition of Austen’s novel to a modern setting, where the characters are themselves churchgoers and students at a religious university. My work is aimed at establishing a connection between Jane Austen’s novel, Andrew Black’s movie and the issue of morality and religion, and how the novel and movie establish a connection not only in terms of fictional elements such as characters and plot, but mainly in regards to one of the possible final messages in both works. Keywords: Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice – Cinema – Intertextuality – Religion – Andrew Black 6 “Tenho medo de escrever. É tão perigoso. Quem tentou, sabe. Perigo de mexer no que está oculto – e o mundo não está à tona, está oculto em suas raízes submersas em profundidades do mar. Para escrever tenho que me colocar no vazio. Neste vazio é que existo intuitivamente. Mas é um vazio terrivelmente perigoso: dele arranco sangue. Sou um escritor que tem medo da cilada das palavras: as palavras que digo escondem outras – quais? Talvez as diga. Escrever é uma palavra lançada no poço fundo.” (Clarice Lispector, in Um Sopro de Vida ) 7 Note on the corpus The corpus of my work consists of an independent movie directed by Andrew Black, entitled Pride and Prejudice: a latter-day comedy , produced in 2003, based upon Jane Austen’s 1812 novel Pride and Prejudice . The movie has two versions: one for the screen and one for DVD. Since I have not had the opportunity of watching the movie on screen, throughout my entire work, whenever I refer to the 2003 movie, I shall be referring exclusively to the DVD version. 8 Summary Introduction ......................................................................................................... 10 1. Palimpsests: adapting, borrowing and recreating ............................................ 15 2. Jane Austen and Religion: a possible match (?) .............................................. 39 3. Relocating Jane Austen: from Longbourn to Provo ........................................ 60 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 82 References ........................................................................................................... 87 Appendixes .......................................................................................................... 93 Annexes