Moonlight: intertextuality and its dialogue with genetic criticism in the contemporary film adaptation

Abstract

In the universe of literary adaptation, contemporary cinematic narrative increasingly crosses the boundary of relationships between the pages of a fictional work and the images of a film. The cinema, like the audiovisual that surrounds it, constructs its discourse in a convergence (JENKINS, 2006) way, seeking intertextual and interdisciplinary references (STAM, 2006). In this process other forms of art and writing may open the door to an experimental and independent language, but is this grounded in theoretical and critical inquiry? In search of an answer or at least a clue on this issue, this study also dialogues with genetic criticism (SALLES, 2004) to analyze the movie Moonlight (2016), adapted from the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue (2003). Its script, when distancing itself from its original text, re-signifies its content, and in this way, manages to build its plot.

Keywords
Adaptation; Contemporary Cinema; Intertextuality; Genetic Criticism; Moonlight