Abstract

Creating an artistic space of a screen work based on a literary source usually implies a degree of adherence to the original text (if the term text means story line, idea, major conflict of a novel, novella, play, etc.). Considering the fact that cinematograph and literature are two autonomous kinds of art, it seems today incorrect to believe a literary primary source to be something monolithic and unalterable; and the interference into whose aesthetic essence affects the artistic value of a screen interpretation. The obligatory fidelity to the literary primary source is annulled by the fact of artistic persuasion of the screen adaptation, which is virtually a new original work of art.The article aims at determining the specificity of rendering the plot of T. Shevchenko’s play Nazar Stodolia and its idea-and-character meaning into the screen language, as well as examining the correlation of the dramatic work’s content with a text of its screen adaptation. Three films of the same name by T. Shevchenko’s play Nazar Stodolia were selected for the study: by T. Shevchenko’s drama Nazar Stodolia. Heorhiy Tasin directed the first one in 1936, at the film company Ukrayinfilm. The film director Viktor Ivchenko produced the second, in 1954, at the Kyiv Cinema Studio of Feature Films. And the third one was directed by Tetiana Mahar, in 1989, at the Ukrtelefilm.The submitted paper is based on the comparative aspect and on pointing out differences between above-mentioned screen versions, which turned out to manifest themselves in the revision of not only the verbal text of the drama, but also its main senses. The authoress also compares the expressive means of all these three interpretations, taking into account the evolution of screen language, the then time-dependent technical feasibility of the studios involved, and so on. The films creates at different times afford ground for comparatively analysing their artistic qualities, the specificity of filming the dramaturgy and genre features of the T. Shevchenko play, as well as making it possible to study the cultural context of the screen works under consideration.While talking about the screen adaptations of the play, it should be noticed that all three films have retained the plot of the play, and they possess genre-and-style features of the primary source in a varying degree. The directors applied to making some changes of the play’s plot, which differ from the drama particularly by three diverse denouements. The image of the main miscreant, Khoma Kychatyi, was also treated in a different way.The comparative analysis of screen versions is indicative of filmmakers’ reconsidering the basic text, and accordingly, shifts in its plot-and-character conception. This allowed film directors to reveal their own visions of the theme and idea of this drama. The artistic space of each screen version differs with the dramatic primary source by its own aesthetic parameters. Means of artistic expressiveness of a silver screen or a TV screen, as well as a cultural space, within which the screen versions had been made, led to transforming the play’s text and to changing the plot scheme of the T. Shevchenko work. However, each film director of the screen adaptations under study has left the play’s main aspects unchanged, namely, the ideas of love devotion, fidelity of friendship, and the inspiration of human right to choose their own destiny.

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