The catcher in an imaginary America: The perverse domestication of American reality in Krzysztof Zanussi’s Holden (1961) | Intellect Skip to content
1981
Volume 15, Issue 3
  • ISSN: 1753-6421
  • E-ISSN: 1753-643X

Abstract

The year 2021 marked the seventieth anniversary of the publication of J. D. Salinger’s , and the sixtieth of what is to date the only film adaptation of the novel. In 1961 the 22-year-old Krzysztof Zanussi made from behind the Iron Curtain, a short film entitled , which referred directly to the novel’s characters and events. He did this despite Salinger’s ban on any form of adaptation of his work. The film, although faithful to the source novel, had a perversely Polish flavour. This article takes a translation studies approach to the discussion of how the specific sociopolitical circumstances in which the adaptation was made resonate in Zanussi’s picture. The focus is on the ways in which the concept of an imaginary America, so vivid and emotionally powerful among the Polish youth of the 1960s, determined the film’s narrative and domesticated the source text.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian University
  • Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at Jagiellonian University
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2023-02-20
2024-04-19
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