Voices and faces of Emma Zunz: four film adaptations

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze and compare a corpus of four film adaptations of “Emma Zunz” (The Aleph, 1949), the short story by Jorge Luis Borges, recognizing similarities and differences between them. The analysis focuses especially on the voice and face of the female protagonist, as well as on the diegetic space, considering the diversity of contexts in which these films were produced (Argentina, Poland, United States and France). Over the decades, the successive versions of “Emma Zunz” reveal not only the persistence of cinematographic interest in Borges’ literature, but also the multiple reading possibilities that each Borgean story opens to its readers. The construction of the crime plot, the ambiguous narrator and an elliptical protagonist in Borges’ short story contribute to provoke rereadings and recontextualizations of “Emma Zunz” in the audiovisual discourse.

Keywords

• jorge luis borges
• transposición
• literatura y cine