Catalysing Elastextity in adaptation screenwriting: The motivic chronotope of liminality

Abstract

Julie Grossman’s term ‘elasTEXTity’ describes sources and adaptations that have a flexibility that represents change rather than a rigid relationship between immovable objects. When matched with Jamie Sherry’s argument that the screenplay is ‘liminal’, Grossman’s framing is usefully applied to adaptation screenwriting to describe a ‘liminal elastextual catalyst’ for either syntagmatic, ‘plastextual’ and derivative adaptations, or ones that are paradigmatic, ‘elastextual’ and innovative. This framing is particularly compelling for adaptations of the 1960s and 1970s from the ‘liminal’ Soviet Republics, as evidenced in two readings of an Estonian narrative. One is non-paradigmatically focused on political borders, while the other paradigmatically describes a motivic chronotope lodged in the notion of liminality, the Bakhtinian Threshold Chronotope and the notion of transgredience that reflects realistic human characteristics. Rather than a syntagmatic transposition of people, places and actions, the latter reading is more ‘elastextual’ in holding potential for a welcome substantial challenge to the primacy, integrity and identity of the source text.