A Life in the Theater: Intertextuality in Ingmar Bergman's Efter repetitionen
2001; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 73; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2163-8195
Autores Tópico(s)Visual Culture and Art Theory
ResumoIntertextuality in Ingmar Bergman's Efter repetitionen EVER SINCE Julia Kristeva coined term intertextuality in 1966, it has been widely used but as often abused when employed without precise clarification to designate something other than what she had in mind. For Kristeva every text is potentially an intertext, the site of an intersection of numberless other texts, including those which will be written in future (Abrams 285). I, however, shall here use term in another and at once both wider and narrower sense. Intertext here denotes an element in a text or a performance, that is closely related -- formally and/or thematically -- to an element that is textually, audio-visually, or aurally documented outside text/performance under consideration. Thus defined, intertext may seem merely a synonym for allusion. But allusion is just one type of intertext; quotation, paraphrase, and parody are, for example, others. Intertext may relate either to producer (notably author and director) or to consumer (reader, spectator, listener). The connection between internal signifier and external signified may be explicit or implicit, conscious or unconscious, and can vary according to its intended audience as well: it may be intended for general recipients, aficionados, a close circle of colleagues or friends, or merely for author or director himself. In following, I shall be concerned primarily with intertextuality as related to author and director who in this case happen to be one and same person. Ingmar Bergman's Efter repetitionen [After Rehearsal] was written in 1980(1) and broadcast by Swedish Television in 1984. The publication of text, hereafter called script and not published until 1994 in volume Femte akten [The Fifth Act], was preceded by appearance of a French translation, Apres la repetition, in 1985.(2) An amply illustrated French transcription of Swedish television performance was also published in 1990. Neither script nor transcription has as yet been published in English. The four scripts in Femte akten, Bergman explains on back cover, ar skrivna utan tanke pa eventuellt medium vid ett framforande [were written without any thought of presentational medium];(3) it was by chance, he adds, that Efter repetitionen blev en TV-film [became a TV film](4) or, as he had earlier called it, a televisionspjas [television play].(5) The script has also been basis of stage productions outside Sweden (Cowie 390). While unspecified with regard to medium, Efter repetitionen, Bergman maintains (Bilder 222; Images 221-2), was written with specific people in mind: Sven Nykvist as photographer and Erland Josephson and Lena Olin as actors. Ingrid Thulin apparently was not included at this early stage. Femte akten carries following epigraph from Ibsen's Peer Gynt: PEER GYNT. Vig fra mig skraemsel! Pak dig mand! Jeg vil ej do! Jeg ma iland! PASSAGEREREN. For den sags skyld vor uforsagt; -- man dor ej midt i femte akt. [glider bort] [5] (PEER Hence with thee, scarecrow! Hop it, man! I will not die! I must reach land! S.P. Where that's concerned, -- why, man alive, one doesn't die in mid-Act Five! (he glides away) [Ibsen 135]) This quotation, which explains title of book, is an example of romantic irony, metatheater, or -- in sense that it affects our view of scripts in volume -- intertextuality. The Strange Passenger's remark is an illusion-breaking statement reminding recipient that s/he is witnessing a play. Bergman, in this case, not only helps those readers who are unfamiliar with Ibsen's play to identify title Femte akten as a quotation, but also provides a verbal context suggesting that four scripts included in his volume -- did he deliberately exclude a fifth? -- all have something to do not only with life or death, but also with art, indeed with an intermingling of three. …
Referência(s)