Feature Film as a Literary Work
Feature Film as a Literary Work

Summary/Abstract: The relationships between feature film and literature are typically conceptualized from the perspec-tive of film adaptations. Although numerous shared points between them are noticeable, typicallyfeature films are not treated as literary works tout court.The paper focuses on the difference between the medium and literature, which allows us to look atany feature film as literature in the film medium. “Empirical media studies” (U. Saxer, W. Faulstich)provides the methodological foundation for the paper, and three representative examples are dis-cussed. The first two are extremely different from each other: a feature film preceding a novel (Alienby R. Scott and Alien by A.D. Foster), and the opposite variant, i.e. a feature film based on a novelin the book medium (Barry Lyndon by S. Kubrick and The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon by W.M. Thac-keray). The third example (Love Story by A. Hiller and Love Story by E. Segal) is intermediate: thefeature film and the novel were released at the same time (Segal wrote the novel based on his ownscenario during the production of the film).The examples analyzed, together with theoretical considerations, show that it is not the so-called“language of film” that makes a film a work of art, but its “literary-logical continuum” (Faulstich), whichsupports the thesis that all literature is mediated, and that traditional considerations regarding filmadaptation should include the issue of literary media to a greater extent.

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