Wypełnić puste miejsca. O fascynacjach literackich i praktykach adaptacyjnych Federica Felliniego

Abstract

The main aim of this essay is to show the original adaptive technique used by Federico Fellini in his films, which were based on literature. Although Fellini was inspired by many literary works in his work, he adapted only four text directly. These are: Edgar Alan Poe’s novella Don’t Bet with the Devil on the Head, brought to the screen as Toby Dammit – a segment of the horror novella Three Steps into Madness (Histoires extraordinaires, 1968); Satyrics of Petronius (Fellini – Satiricon, 1969); The story of my life by Giacomo Casanova (film: Il Casanova di Federico Fellini, 1976) and Poem of Sleepwalkers (Poema di lunatici) by Ermano Cavazzoni, which are the basis of the director’s last work, the film The Voice of the Moon (La voce della luna, 1990). In the works transferred to the screen, the Italian director was looking not so much for material to create a faithful, cinematic version of the work, but he was looking for empty spaces that he could fill with images created in his own imagination (although in his own way consistent with what the authors of the literary prototypes had created). Thanks to this, Fellini’s film adaptations of literature are more projections of his artistic talent than the visions of the original creators of the book’s prototypes.