THE DISLOCATION OF THE NARRATIVE VOICE IN THE ADAPTATION OF RAYMOND CARVER’S “SO MUCH WATER SO CLOSE TO HOME” AND “LEMONADE” IN ROBERT ALTMAN’S SHORT CUTS

Abstract

Abstract: This article works with Robert Altman’s film adaptation Short cuts and its hypertext relation with Raymond Carver’s short story “So much water so close to home” and poem “Lemonade”. The category chosen for the analysis was Gérard Genette’s transfocalization, and the challenge in this adaptation is due to the director’s trademarked structure of intertwining of over twenty characters present in the story, going from the narrative text’s homodiegetic narrator and the lyrical I in the poem to a movie which has no lead characters. After contextualizing Altman’s adaptation work with many other texts from Carver, the discussion goes to a theoretical framework on the typical challenges on adaptation as seen through Hutcheon, Stam, Bazin and Andrew. Finally, the discussion is concentrated in the short story’s direct association with one of the narrative families, using for such Genette’s theory, whereas the analysis of the poem in the film contemplates the film’s complex macrostructure, through Rancière’s distribution of the sensible. The results allows to observe Altman’s innovation to adaptation studies, eschewing from obsolete beliefs pertaining to a lack of creativity when using literature on cinema.