Как украсть образ: Поэтика одного сюжета в литературе и кино

Шаги/Steps. 2020. Т. 6. № 4. С. 194–215.

Zenkin S.

In world literature of the 19th–20th centuries, as well as
in cinema, a narrative plot is frequently employed that involves
the abduction of visual representations — paintings, sculptures,
etc. This article makes an attempt to highlight the recurrent structures
that organize the story about the “theft of an image”, and also
form or deform the visual image itself once introduced into a story.
Three aspects of the plot are studied: narratological, semantic and
rhetorical. The visual image functions as a narrative actant, not
different in this from a valuable thing that one can take hold of;
originating from a foreign or ancient culture, it acquires the status
of a sacred object, enshrined in various envelopes and frames; it is
involved in the play of figurative substitutions and associations —
metaphorically or metonymically linked to one of the characters,
included in closed or open image series. Those series of copies, corresponding
to the general virtualization of visual images in modern
digital civilization, call into question the original narrative intrigue,
which implies the abduction of a unique original work. The
article takes into consideration literary works by Arthur Conan
Doyle, Dashiel Hammett and Donna Tartt, movies directed by John
Frankenheimer, William Wyler, John McTiernan, Giuseppe Tornatore,
Eldar Riazanov, Otar Iosseliani, and others.

Keywords: кино, литература, семиотика, cinema, narrative, повествование, literature, semiotics, visual images, визуальный образ