Arrival: From Book to Screen

Abstract

Thisdissertation examines an adaptation of a short story to cinema based on an analytical and comparative approach. It defines the process of adapting from one medium to another and introduces the art of storytelling. The genre of the story adapted is science fiction, the present work gives an overview of the genre in literature and cinema by showing its important figures and representatives that permitted the genre‟s evolution, highlighting important moments in the history of science fiction literarily and cinematically, presenting its multiple definitions by different scholars and specialists. Then it presents the short story and its author Ted Chiang, the feature film, the screenwriter and the director of the film and finally the cast, elements that are contained in the first chapter. In the second chapter, this dissertation puts the focus on the similarities between the short story “The Story of Your Life” and its adaptation to screen Arrivalat three different levels; the plot, the character and the themes. An adaptation which simply uses texts from the original source as dialogues and scenes without modifications is not an adaptation. In the case of Arrival, changes are presents and examined also at three levels; the plot and the characters, the Sapir Whorf hypothesis which plays a primordial role in the logic of the film and the story movement. Most stories tend to deliver a message, positive or negative, pessimistic or optimistic etc. So, in the last part of the second chapter, this work attempts to decipher the hidden meaning behind the story politically and philosophically based on several interpretations.