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

means and other filmic devices such as moving camera, zoom, etc. for the viewer
to read it as an ekphrastic transmedialization. Plett’s theory of quotation will thus
be a useful tool for analyzing the spectrum from quotation to ekphrasis in film.
Plett’s system looks at the “quantity, quality, distribution, frequency,
interference, and markers of quotation” (Plett 8). With regard to quantity, how
much from the quoted image is used, whether it is shown whole or in parts, and
which parts of it, will provide insights into the function of the image in the text or
film. For example, in Alain Resnais’ short film Guernica, Picasso’s famous image
is never shown whole, but fragmented throughout, thus underscoring the film’s
atmosphere of violence and destruction. Plett’s category of quality refers to the
extent to and way in which a quotation is reshaped and recontextualized. The
result of transposing one medium to another can either be “intertextual identity”
or “intertextual deviation” (Plett 9). Plett distinguishes between the surface
structure, the grammatical and structural transformations, and deep structure, the
different layers of meaning generated by the intersection of and dialog between
two or more texts (9-10). For example, as Claus Clüver has shown, Anne Sexton’s
“Starry Night” translates Van Gogh’s painting into words, reproducing the details
of it as well as its point of view (“Intersemiotic” 64-67). In Plett’s terms, it would
be an example of intertextual identity both in its surface and deep structure. By
contrast, Alexander Fhares’ “Ikarus” (1972) omits many items from Breughel’s
painting and replaces them with (often anachronistic) elements not found in the
work. The surface structure of the quotation thus deviates from the original.
However, in its deep structure, the poet is as consciously anachronistic as
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