Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

60% of the words spoken on the screen” (268) Yet, he admits that nevertheless,
“the characters and the plot adhere closely to Zuckmayer’s concept” (ibid), and
that the film incorporates almost all of Zuckmayer’s visual suggestions,
sometimes modifying them.
Korda follows this agenda also with regard to ekphrasis. Art works
mentioned in Zuckmayer’s script are never shown in the film; rather, Korda
visualizes Rembrandt’s art through his own cinematic tableaux. Likewise, while
the text does not specify what Rembrandt looks like in each scene, that is, gives
no indication about his resemblance to or enactment of his self portraits, Korda
shows Charles Laughton in poses or garments reminiscent of Rembrandt self
portraits at important moments throughout the film. Korda thus deliberately
exploits film’s unique ability to represent a particular self-image of Rembrandt
and translate it to the cinematic medium. The film, then, takes up the
Zuckmayer’s cues but intensifies the subtext of the screenplay which reveals a
different story of Rembrandt that contrasts with its linear storyline of the artist’s
inner development and external downfall.
This relationship between the screenplay and the film can be better
understood by drawing on reception studies and the concept of indeterminacies
and gaps (“Unbestimmtheitsstellen”) that are filled in or removed by the act of
“concretizing” the text. 182 Even more than a novel, which is meant to be read, a
screenplay is primarily meant to be enacted and seen. While the novel is enacted
and concretized privately in the individual act of reading, the screenplay is
182 Cf. Roman Ingarden, Vom Erkennen des literarischen Kunstwerks (Darmstatt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968), esp. 49ff., and Wolfgang Iser, Der Akt des Lesens
(München: W. Fink Verlag, 1994) 269-74.
160