MAP — Modular Aggregation of Principles for Bible Translation

Extracted text from IST_Seminar_2012_PPP_-SLIDES_def-_DUSI.ppt:

Nida Institute Inter-semiotic Translation Seminar II Misano Adriatico, Italy April 23-27, 2012 Narration, discourse, sensation. Cinematic Strategies in Intersemiotic Translation Nicola Dusi University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (I)

Texts as layered cultural products In textual semiotics a novel and a film, like any other text, have some identifiable invariant structures. According to Greimas (1983) texts are layered objects, formed by mutually dependent levels. A narrative text starts his generative trajectory in the deep and abstract level of the organization of values, tensions and affects (with pathemic isotopies); - becomes a story with actants and their narrative paths and proofs; - increase in complexity through the thematic and figurative levels (with isotopies); - becomes discourse, or plot, through actors, space, time and enunciative operations (dbrayage / embrayage) - on the plan of the Expression, it organizes the figurative level and provides plastic features as light, colours, space, shapes and mouvement, rhythm.

For the first case-study: intersemiotic translation: plane of Content / plane of Expression plane of Content 1. values and their articulation (Greimas) 2. actants (giver/receiver; subject/object of value; helper/opponent) and narrative points of view (Greimas; Genette) 3. generative trajectory: from values to narration to discourse 4. isotopies (Eco; Greimas) 5. discourse (actors, space, time) and strategies of enunciation -------For the second case-study: 6. plane of Expression : forms and substances in movies 7. plastic features: colors, light, rhytm, ecc. (Floch) 8. space in textual semiotics (Greimas) 9. enunciation and discoursive points of view (Greimas; Eco) 10. approaches of the cinematic gaze (Casetti)

Space and Subjects in Textual Semiotics Narrative subjects use space for their actantial proofs Discoursive subjects have thematic and figurative knowledge of it (the space identifies the characters; gives a contest, a frame) Enunciative subject are a construction of operations of textual strategies as dbrayages.

Enunciative strategies Dbrayage: the enunciation creates a discourse with an act of negation: not me, not here, not now. It is also a way of the objective discourse and of the narration in third person. Embrayage: it's the contrary: a way of a subjective discourse and narration in first person, that refers directly to the three categories of person, space, time (me, here, now). 5

Enunciation and film

Every point of view in a movie is a focalisateur (Genette) that might watch and/or know and/or believe. Objective: viewer as neutral witness (You watch, I tell the story) Subjective: viewer embedded (Me and you watch together) Interpellation: viewer as adressee (I'm talking to you) Not real objective: viewer as free eye (Watch where you like)

Pasolini's Il vangelo secondo Matteo (1964) Pasolini's statements (1964): "I think that Matthew is the most revolutionary among the Evangelists, because he is the most "realistic", closer to the reality of the peasant world in which Christ appeared. His account of the events in the crisis that culminated with the arrival of Christ, I think is the one that best corresponds to the situation and mentality of people in those days"

Pasolini does not mean to be illustrative but wants to convey "the sense of poetry that is in the Gospel": "My idea is this: to follow step by step the Gospel according to Matthew... Faithfully translating it into images, without omission from or addition to the story" (ib.) 7

In The Gospel according to Matthew (our source text)

"The same arrangement of the material employed by the Evangelist seems to remember the five books of Moses. In fact, removing the story of childhood (1, 1 to 2.23) and the passion-death-resurrection Jesus (26, 1 to 28.20) that are part of their own, the other the material is distributed in five highly visible articulations each formed by a narrative section and a educational one, ending with the characteristic formula "When Jesus had finished these speeches " (7.28, 11.1, 13.53, 19.1, 26.1). (F. Pasquero, in La Bibbia. Nuovissima versione dai testi originali, Ed. San Paolo, Roma, 1987, p. 1517) 8

The structure of Pasolini's film The film has a balanced, symmetrical structure that makes it divisible into four parts: - two shorter ones, almost without dialogue, are the beginning and end of the film: birth / youth ; sentence / death / resurrection. - Two long ones that are the central parts with the sermons and the pronouncements of Jesus. These scenes open always in the same way, with a very long shot of the landscape and the little group of Jesus and the disciples which is arriving. or is crossing, the space of the frame. Then we can observe better through a Close Up or even an Extreme Close Up, while we listen to Jesus. It is a cinematic way to translate the "educational" and the "narrative" articulations of the Gospel. 9

Scenes of Il Vangelo secondo Matteo Birth and Childhood of Jesus - Mary (pregnant) and Joseph's dream - Herod, the Magi - Travel to Egypt, Massacre of the Innocents - Return to Galilee preaching - Part One - Jesus (adult): baptism with John the Baptist - Penance of Jesus in the desert and fight with Satan - Solitary preaching - Call of the disciples - Beginning of the public preaching - First miracles: healing the lepers - Sermon on the Mountain - Altercation with the priests and other miracles - Jesus walks on water - John in prison - Sermon about generations and against Jerusalem - Arrival in Nazareth - Meeting with the rich young man - Dance of Salome - Beheading of John in prison - Departure of Jesus and the disciples - Call of Matthew preaching - Part II - New journey in the desert, voice over reciting a psalm - Jesus talks to the disciples - First revelation about his death and resurrection - Jesus' teachings on children - Arrival in Jerusalem - Anger in the temple - new preachings - confrontation with the priests - Preaching under the control of the soldiers - Caiaphas decides that Jesus must die - Lunch with the disciples and the woman who anoints Jesus, Judas protests - Judas goes to sell Jesus - Last supper - Gethsemane, night of prayer and waiting - Judas' betrayal process, passion, resurrection - Jesus arrested - Trial by Caiaphas - Peter denying three times - Trial by Pilate - Via Crucis , Crucifixion and Death - Deposition and burial - Resurrection - Last appearance of Jesus to the disciples 10

Pasolini's working method "It is a kind of reconstruction through analogy. In other words, I replaced the landscape with a similar landscape, the castles and palaces of power with similar palaces, the faces of the time with similar faces..." (P.P. Pasolini, 1964)

Pictorial references and stylistic problems

The image of the pregnant Mary opening the film is based on that by Piero della Francesca (in Monterchi): the frontal position and the simplicity of the basic components, the semi-circular pattern of the background, the details of the drapery and her face, with her eyelids half-closed, everything illustrating the search for unity between the royal (and divine) and the popular (and human). 12

Pictorial references and stylistic problems There is a symmetrical and harmonious order also in the composition of figures i.e. in the dispute between Jesus and Caiaphas (watch the CLIP): two groups of men in a paratactic positioning referred to each respective center.

It is a closed form of representation taken from religious paintings of the Renaissance that gives an effect of solemnity and regularity. 13

Pictorial references and stylistic problems

In the movie there are many close-ups: the reference is to the paintings characteristic of the early Fifteenth century, especially as regards the clothes of the Pharisees and the scribes copied (and translated) from Piero della Francesca's frescoes.

Pictorial references and stylistic problems

Another scene inspired by Piero: the "Baptism of Christ". The movie uses the same light of noon and the same composition of the group of people, even if the three angels of the painting are replaced with three young men, including the future apostles John and James.

Choices of a transposition The literary source text, The Gospel according to Matthew, inspired Pasolini in terms of its multiple concatenations, its cross-connections, its pairings-duplications, the repetitive grammatical structures. When screenwriting and editing the movie Pasolini strives to attain the perfect proportion of the structures even in the order of film sequences: he devises its own system, geared first of all to the visual aspects of the target text: for example the phenomenon of some symmetrical sequences (as if they were a couple), edited and composed in the same way. 16

Symmetrical sequences

For example: the journey of Jesus to Nazareth is structured as a clear parallel to the path of Joseph at the beginning of the film. Both scenes are composed of nearly identical shots and the same organization of space and actions. In this way Jesus therefore takes on both the role of the boy-protector and then the role of the angel-preacher.

This structure of the cross-referenced scenes that refer to each other, through a repetition of the landscape or the architectural arrangement, can be found in earlier cycles of Fourteenth-century frescoes including those of Giotto. 17

Symmetrical sequences

The Sermon on the Mountain Ttwo enunciative operations: 1. near-abstraction of spatial instructions (with sky, clouds, the sea as background) 2. highlighting of temporal instructions (with atmospheric and luminous moments of the day and night)

Jesus' speech is thus temporalized, it becomes audiovisual, and the editing makes the scene fluid; this temporality is also indicative of the duration of the speech (it starts in the morning, goes on till the evening, night, storm, new day...) 19

The Sermon on the Mountain narrative aspects and figurative aspects: the sequence starts with his head covered and goes through transformations of the figure. In the finale the head is again uncovered, as if a process had been completed, the passing of a test, a transformation. plastic aspects: simultaneously, the luminosity and the worlds invisible forces become increasingly clear, until the storm breaks out. The whole sequence produces an effect of realism, thanks to the spatial contextualization, the isotopy of the same character (continuity), and the suggestions about the weather (clouds, wind, storm), and of temporality of the action. 20

The Sermon on the Mountain The seq. of the Lords prayer and the seq. of the lilies of the field are the climax of tension in the story: in the first part the repetition and fixity of the shots produces an expectation of the identical, reiterated, reassuring; in the last part, by contrast, light and darkness clash with each other, forces are unleashed as proof of the POWER of the message; - flashes of light: Jesus face becomes mysterious, ragged, the category of visibility/invisibility and of absence/presence comes into play: it is like a warning and an exaltation at the same time; - also the force of the wind disarranges the quiet composure and compactness of the veil and hair and opens them out, it gives them dynamic quality, it plays with shapes; 21

The Sermon on the Mountain In the seq. of the lilies of the field, perhaps the most poetic part of the whole speech together with the sky getting lighter and lighter there is the beginning of a soft, tender, broad (strings) musical comment: it's an instruction of closure of the narrative sequence (at first without music), but also a connotative (value-laden) comment of positivity and acceptance.

The Sermon on the Mountain

What has been omitted from Matthew? All the verses that place restrictions on social life, like the one dealing with adultery, divorce, oaths, as well as murder, fasting, and the whole of the final part dealing with false prophets and false disciples.

"Sacred" forms of composition

In his first films, Pasolini started from a cinematic translation of the pictorial ways of Masaccio and Caravaggio as exponents of realistic and existential forms of representation. He felt an affinity with their use of light, to their "chiaroscuro" and their compositions of simple and magnificent figures. But the style of this movie is more mixed and combines both the "sacred" forms of composition (as he calls them) and the documentary ones. 24

Explicit / Implicit In the documentary that he shooted before the film, Locations in Palestine (1963), Pasolini states: "In Matthews account of the preaching of Christ, the appearance of Jerusalem, besides being a strictly religious event, also becomes in some way (not by the choice of Christ and the apostles but according to historical data), a public and policy event. This will not be mentioned explicitly in my film, because that would be absurd, but it will be expressed implicitly, through a stylistic transformation of the story. " 25

Stylistic transformations of the story In the first part of the film, the world is permeated with archaic figures similar to the poor and desert landscape: they are isolated in a rural and quiet environment. - In the second part, from the arrival in Jerusalem, the style changes and becomes more nervous, full of moving shapes of the urban environment and scenes of crowds. From the trials to the passion, the movie almost always tells the events through a subjective gaze (perspective or viewing point) of some witness (Peter, John, Mary) and the gaze is partially obstructed by the necks of the people standing in front of the viewer. 26

Stylistic transformations of the story The Via Crucis is composed of shots filmed by a handheld camera, to create an effect of "presence";

the climax of the drama, the raising of the cross, is seen through the subjective gaze of Mary (played in the movie by Susanna Pasolini, the director's mother).

JCS: Vision and mystical experience : Gethsemani

how to create an effect of "presence" (a "presentification")? Jesus Christ Superstar produces in the eye of the viewer a pragmatic and "cognitive" performance, together with a sensory and "emotional" transformation of his/her perception. - Gethsemani: a sequence of explicit references to painting builds a sort of mystical vision. 28

JCS: Vision and mystical experience : Gethsemani Jesus is insecure and strident, screaming up the mountain the absurdity of pain and death that awaits him. Jesus, singing, asks God to know the reason and understand whether it is worth it: I want to know, my God, I want to see, why should I die; when he already seems to accept the ineluctability of his fate, he challenges God to a common vision : Just watch me die, see how Ill die. - his watching is a leap into the future, which draws him out of the condition of subject entering that of an object of worship, of a sacred image. Jesus watches (and show us) how his martyrdom will become history and the stereotype of a religious imagery. 29

JCS: Vision and mystical experience : Gethsemani it is a bundled and rapid editing of at least ten crucifixions, with works from the Flemish Renaissance, the late Gothic and the Baroque. In a succession of rapid perspectives of the body of Christ on the cross, with zoom in or Close Up of the face and other details, we see the head, the chest, the nailed hands taken from the Crucifixion by Grnewald for the Isenheim Altar (1512 - 1516). - but also others paintings: w e recognize a Magdalene in tears from another early Grnewald Crucifixion, and the face of the Madonna made for a Crucifixion by Masaccio (for the Pisa Altarpiece, 1426). And again, an angel in the fashion of Raphael, or the glances and grins of disbelief spectators drawn from a painting by Bosch: Christ Carrying the Cross (1515-16). 30

JCS: Vision and mystical experience : Gethsemani

it is a micro-narration of the Passion, which together with the repetitive music becomes ever more insistent until the voice of Jesus blocks the succession of sacred images with a curt and shouted: "Stop it!" - The mystic vision, through the syncretism of details of painting, music and editing, together with the use of colorsaturated images, puts into figures (with a "figurativization") what the character Jesus will endure during the Passion: the horror and the pain. - Jesus becomes a Subject calling its Sender but also a storyteller who challenges the instance of enunciation of his own story and calls on behalf of himself. 31

"symbolic efficiency" The deviation from the tradition of the Gospels is rather provocative: Jesus calls God directly (while accepting his will), with the phrase "Just watch me die". A direct challenge also for the viewer: "watch me die". - there is a "symbolic efficiency" that affects and transforms the body of the viewer: through the syncretic discourse of the film, the rhythm of the editing and the choices of enunciation, we watch this micro-narration that is first of all "figurative" passing from the body of the deity sacrificed, a martyred body, then "dismembered": a sort of "anatomy of the Crucifixion". - A network of figures linked to the discursive configuration of passion, of sacrifice, of expiation. 32

an effect of presence

a complex textual construction with the search for an effect of presence toward the viewer: he will experience a pragmatic performance (a vision) and cognitive one (understanding), but he will pass through an emotional and sensory leap, which is created through the frenetic jumble of images, the near and distant perspective of the images, the pressing rhythm and the crescendo of sound intensity. - So there is not only a "discursive configuration" of passion, but also a construction linked to a set of rhythmic patterns and affecting "sensory-motor schemas". They organize the data of the external world and re-organize an internal and perceptual experience, "intimate", in the form of, for example, of anxious breathing. - effect of proximity and of empathy with the protagonist of the story, producing a "vibrating together" of the film and the viewer. A 33 sensory and emotional sharing ("Suffer with me!").

JCS and Pasolini's Il vangelo secondo Matteo Although Jesus Christ Superstar enhances the modernization effect, it often bears reference to Pasolini's film as, for example, with the choices of costumes. The relationship is mostly figurative, in terms of the desert setting, or the references to war and violence through the use of modern helmets incongruous for the Roman soldiers. But Pasolini' film tends towards a purity of actions and words, isolated and rarefied as they are. Also for sets and costumes, the sought-for effect is a purity of representation and an abstraction given by the absence (or the subtraction) of different historical styles all taken from Classical and Renaissance iconography. 34

Dusi - Narration

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