SPACES OF TIME IN THE MOVIE TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY (2006)
SPACES OF TIME IN THE MOVIE TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY (2006)

Summary/Abstract: Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, Michael Winterbottom’s 2006 adaptation of L. Sterne’s novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is weaving the present with the past, in an intriguing movie that gives a contemporary voice to the words of Sterne/ Shandy. The first focus of analysis in my paper is how the race against chronological time functions both in the novel and in the movie. Fear of death motivates the novel writer’s attempt to push the story of his life forward, but generates his incapacity to give the story a straight line, at the same time. The 2006 adaptation presents the time of making the movie as the director, cast and crew’s struggle to meet a deadline, which becomes a challenge, due to the interference of complicated personal lives, impossible to keep off the set. The second issue I deal with is time as structural device, that is the elements of film grammar which are used in organising transitions in time and space. This adaptation is about contemporary actors starring in a difficult, postmodern adaptation of an old, difficult novel that plays with the temporal frames in its characters’ lives. The crossing of boundaries between the two media causes amusing and confusing situations. What are the obstacles they face and the techniques used in switching from contemporary settings, costumes, language to 18th century elements, in order to transpose an ‘unfilmable’ novel?

• Details
• Contents