Intertextuality "as a device' and the "roll-call of texts" in documentaries about M. Bulgakov
The article examines the use of intertextual connections as an artistic method of creation of the biographical narrative in the modern Russian TV documentary. The object of the research is "writer's movies" popular in Russia, and the greatest interest among the authors and the public is manifested by the prohibited books or the "hidden", not published in due time by the decision of the censorship or by the will of the writer. Most of such dramatic stories belong the literature of the Soviet period, one of the most famous is associated with the name of Mikhail Bulgakov, so the article discusses the films about his life and work: Mikhail Bulgakov. Novels and Destiny (2000), Riddles of The Master and Margarita (2005), The Mystic Force of the Master (2011). The main plot motif of the analyzed films about Mikhail Bulgakov and his works appears to be the "roll-call" of the text of a literary work and the "text of life" of the writer: at the level of images, actions, meanings and the topos. The comparison shows a variety of ways of visualising intertextual relations, their dependence on the author's intention and narrative strategies. In the first film the author, a famous writer Igor Zolotussky, speaks with a religious and philosophical interpretation of the creativity of the writer. He analyzes the roll-call of the "text of life" and the texts of the novels at the level of important ideological-artistic aspects of The White Guard and The Master and Margarita, in particular, of the opposition "light-dark" or the significance of the motif of rest for a better understanding of the Master. With the help of quotations, Zolotussky also convincingly identifies and clearly outlines a few key points of Bulgakov's life reflected in the novels: upbringing in a religious family, God, the artistic nature of Bulgakov, his childlessness, etc. It is achieved by methods of literary rhetoric, citing and concise visualization (landscape, figures, photographs). The authors of Riddles of The Master and Margarita came to the task of the onscreen incarnation of the plot motif of the "roll-call" of the artistic text and the "text of life" differently. Using the principle of a polyphonic narration, as well as the opportunity to appeal to the TV-based version of the novel, they purposefully focused on the exciting, full of dramatic conflicts history of the work and its connotations with the reality: prototypes, topos, plot, allusions, mythology that appeared around the novel. In the film The Mystic Force of the Master, the authors present the "text of life" of the writer as a text full of fateful coincidences, and to implement this plan they use not only film quotations, but also artistic reconstruction - like a vision in the virtual plot "Night at the Museum". In the end, the article concludes that the motif of the "roll-call of texts" in the first film is used to explain the root causes of the close relationship of life and literature, in the second to demonstrate the interaction of the writer's real life and the world of his novel, and the third to creation a myth about the incomprehensibility of a genius.
Keywords
документальный фильм, сюжет, мотив, интертекст, нарратив, автор, documentary, plot, motive, intertextuality, narrative, authorAuthors
Name | Organization | |
Pronin Alexander A. | Saint Petersburg State University | prozin@mail.ru |
References

Intertextuality "as a device' and the "roll-call of texts" in documentaries about M. Bulgakov | Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Filologiya – Tomsk State University Journal of Philology. 2016. № 2 (40).