Intermediality and Reflexivity in Andrzej Żuławski’s Fidelity

• Main Author: Bene Adrián
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sciendo 2015-12-01
• Series: Acta Universitatis Sapientiae: Film and Media Studies
• Subjects: self-reflexivity; intermediality; adaptation; intertextuality; photography; poetry; language of flowers; irony
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/ausfm-2015-0022

The paper focuses on a characteristic of Andrzej Zulawski’s aesthetics which has been ignored by most of the critics who emphasized the impact of surrealism and the taste for provocation in his cinema. Meanwhile, the œuvre’s French period is obviously characterized by self-reflexivity and media-reflexivity, autobiographical and literary background references. In these film dramas, the topic of love, beauty and artistic values are interconnected with a sophisticated narrative strategy using intermediality and intertextuality in a complex way. In Fidelity (La Fidelité, 2000), Żuławski put photography and literature in focus again in order to express thoughts and emotions in their complexity, surpassing the limitations of the linear narrative. A certain semiotic double-codedness is provided by either intertextual references or the hidden meanings based on the symbolic language of flowers, used as diegetic metaphors. Moreover, Żuławski thematizes photography that makes us conscious of our experiences from an aesthetic distance, even in an ironic manner.