Character in the Adapted Series “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries”: Playing with Tradition

Abstract

The Australian TV-series “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” follows a trend that has emerged in mystery film genre over the last few decades. On the one hand, it is an old story about a private detective; on the other – a new narrative, that fascinates the viewer with an extraordinary setting. This effect is provided by the intertextual links that the series forms with the texts of its surroundings. This article examines how various intertextual elements form the image of the “Roaring Twenties”, linking the cinema text with the ‘classic detective’, while at the same time referring to modern cinema. These challenges are reconciled through the image of the main character. The ironic play with the familiar texts produces a light atmosphere of the series, and the references to the fashion and art of the 1920s construct the illusion of the “reality” of Miss Fisher, who finds her own place in the canon owing to the connections with the world of a detective story