“Celle qui avance”: On Becoming Still in the Act, Reading and Rereading of “Gradiva”, Not Only by Alain Robbe-Grillet

Maciej Stasiowski

kwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Jagiellonian University (Poland)

Abstract

A revision of a classic through the prism of Gradiva – a character from the novel by Wilhelm Jensen, which was annexed by Freud and the surrealists, and whose transitive status was emphasised by Alain Robbe-Grillet – may seem willful. This is a false muse; a construction of an archaeological imagination. It was introduced into the canon of twentieth-century art (literature, painting, film) by interpreters who turned her into an interconnecting theme. The character of Gradiva leads one to reflection on the process of looking “anew” on texts of the past, and rethinking the intention of bringing back, correcting and refreshing old films, which is not only a motif of films by Raymonde Caresco, Robbe-Grillet and Leos Carax, but an illustration of the transgression of meaning between the works of literature, fine arts, and film. The figure of Gradiva has an impact on each of these forms of art, but adapts to different mediums in a different manner. Following the traces of this theme, Stasiowski reveals the mechanisms which lead contemporary transformations of classic texts, which applies to their common perception, interpretation but also to the prototype.


Keywords:

Alain Robbe-Grillet, Raymonde Caresco, Leos Carax

Abramowska, Janina. "Topos i niektóre miejsca wspólne badań literackich." Pamiętnik Literacki, R. LXXIII, z. 1-2 (1982): 3-23.
  Google Scholar

Aldrete, Gregory S.. Daily Life in the Roman City: Rome, Pompeii, and Ostia. Westport-London: Greenwood Press, 2004.
  Google Scholar

Andrew, Dudley. Concepts in Film Theory. Oxford-New York-Toronto-Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1984.
  Google Scholar

Aragay, Mireia. "Reflection to Refraction: Adaptation Studies Then and Now." In Books in Motion: Adaptation, Intertextuality, Authorship, edited by Mireia Aragay, 11-34. Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2005.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401202756_004   Google Scholar

Armes, Roy. The Films of Alain Robbe-Grillet. Amsterdam: John Benjamins B. V., 1981.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/pumrl.6   Google Scholar

Barthes, Roland. A Lover's Discourse: Fragments, tłum. R. Howard. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.
  Google Scholar

Bietoletti, Silvestra. Neoclassicism and Romanticism, tłum. A. Arnone. New York: Sterling Publishing Company, 2009.
  Google Scholar

Boulton, William Henry. Wieczność piramid i tragedia Pompei, tłum. K. Michałowski. Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 1974.
  Google Scholar

Bridges, Meilee D.. "Objects of Affection: Necromantic Pathos in Bulwer-Lytton's City of the Dead." In Pompeii in the Public Imagination: From Its Rediscovery to Today, edited by Shelley Hales, and Joanna Paul, 90-104. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199569366.003.0007   Google Scholar

Cardwell, Sarah. Adaptation Revisited: Television and the Classic Novel. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
  Google Scholar

Curtius, Ernst Robert. Literatura europejska i łacińskie średniowiecze, tłum. A. Borowski. Kraków: Universitas, 1997.
  Google Scholar

Dalí, Salvador. The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí. New York: Dover Publications, 1993.
  Google Scholar

Derrida, Jacques, and Eric Prenowitz. "Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression." Diacritics, nr 2, vol. 25 (1995): 9-63.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/465144   Google Scholar

Eberwein, Robert. "Remakes and Cultural Studies." In Play It Again, Sam: Retakes on Remakes, edited by Andrew Horton and Stuart Y. McDougal, 15-33. Berkeley-Los Angeles-Oxford: University of California Press, 1998.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520310216-003   Google Scholar

Forrest, Jennifer, and Leonard R. Koos. "Reviewing Remakes: An Introduction." In Dead Ringers: The Remake in Theory and Practice, edited by Jennifer Forrest and Leonard R. Koos, 1-36. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.
  Google Scholar

Fragola, Anthony N., and Roch Charles Smith. The Erotic Dream Machine: Interviews with Alain Robbe-Grillet on His Films. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995.
  Google Scholar

Freud, Zygmunt. Obłęd i sny w Gradivie Wilhelma Jensena, tłum. R. Reszke. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo KR, 2009.
  Google Scholar

Frye, Northrop. "Mit: fikcja i przemieszczenie.", tłum. E. Muskat-Tabakowska. Pamiętnik Literacki, nr 2, R. LX (1969): 283-302.
  Google Scholar

Gardner Coates, Victoria C.. "Pompeii on the Couch: The Modern Fantasy of 'Gradiva'." In The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection, edited by V. C. Gardner Coates, K. Lapatin, and J. L. Seydl, 70-77. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2012.
  Google Scholar

Garff, Jan. "Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78), The Tomb of the Istacidi, Pompeii, 1777/78." Accessed December 27, 2014. http://www.smk.dk/en/explore-the-art/highlights/giovanni-battista-piranesi-the-tomb-of-the-istacidi-pompeii/
  Google Scholar

Harris, Judith. Pompeii Awakened: A Story of Rediscovery. London-New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2007.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9780755624195   Google Scholar

Jensen, Wilhelm. Gradiva: A Pompeiian Fancy, tłum. Helen M. Downey. Moffat-New York: Yard and Company, 1918.
  Google Scholar

Landa, Jose Ángel García. "Adaptation, Appropriation, Retroaction: Symbolic Interaction with Henry V." In Books in Motion: Adaptation, Intertextuality, Authorship, edited by Mireia Aragay, 181-199. Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2005.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401202756_013   Google Scholar

Leitch, Thomas. Film Adaptation & Its Discontents: From Gone with the Wind to The Passion of Christ. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/book.3302   Google Scholar

Małyszek, Tomasz. Romans Freuda i Gradivy. Rozważania o psychoanalizie. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2014.
  Google Scholar

Morrissette, Bruce. The Novels of Robbe-Grillet, tłum. B. Morrissette. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975.
  Google Scholar

Ribler-Pipka, Nanette. "La Statue Vivante: Metamorphoses de la Gradiva Surrealiste." Melusine, nr 26 (2006): 123-32.
  Google Scholar

Rose, Louis. The Survival of Images: Art Historians, Psychoanalysts, and the Ancients. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001.
  Google Scholar

Scholes, Robert, James Phelan, and Robert Kellogg. The Nature of Narrative. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195151756.001.0001   Google Scholar

Verevis, Constantine. Film Remakes. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748626250   Google Scholar

Zanger, Anat. Film Remakes as Ritual and Disguise: from Carmen to Ripley. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9789048509706   Google Scholar


Published
2015-06-30

Cited by

Stasiowski, M. (2015) ““Celle qui avance”: On Becoming Still in the Act, Reading and Rereading of ‘Gradiva’, Not Only by Alain Robbe-Grillet”, Kwartalnik Filmowy, (89-90), pp. 82–101. doi: 10.36744/kf.2327.

Authors

Maciej Stasiowski 
kwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Jagiellonian University Poland

Doktorant w Instytucie Sztuk Audiowizualnych Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Przygotowuje rozprawę na temat dynamicznych metod reprezentacji wizualnej (w tym filmu) w eksperymentalnych projektach architektonicz­nych. Publikuje w „Ekranach” oraz „Archu”. Autor książki Atlas rzeczy niestałych. Strategie, struktury i chwyty literackich metafikcji w twór­czości Petera Greenawaya (2014).



Statistics

Abstract views: 46
PDF downloads: 38


License

Copyright (c) 2015 Maciej Stasiowski

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The author grants the publisher a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Kwartalnik Filmowy, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Kwartalnik Filmowy should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). The journal is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. By submitting an article, the author agrees to make it available under this licence.

In issues from 105-106 (2019) to 119 (2022) all articles were published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.