adaptation

In the first part of this paper, I juxtapose film practices such as remakes and adaptations in their dual quality of processes and products. I trace the origin and meanings of the first concept, its appearance and de- velopment as a cinemstic activity and its theoretical elaboration through studies of G. Sadoul, T. Gunning, T. Leitch, C. Verevis, J. Forrest, A. Williams et al. I highlight conceptually and with examples the difference between the two phenomena and defend the need to distinguish them, regardless of their similarities. In the second part, I discuss the network of related formats for reworking film products and their role in popular culture. Keyword

Released in 2016, Paolo Genovese’s well-received film “Perfect Strangers” has been remade 18 times by July 2019 and was included in the “Guiness Book of Records”. This comparative case study analyses the Italian film, its Spanish version, as well as the French remake and the Russian variation. The paper explores the intermedial content of the orig- inal film representing the smartphone as a dispositive generating framed narratives in the main plot. The forms of remaking as “transcultural ad- aptation”28 are related to different degrees of repetition, transformation and renewal. The premises for the film’s high “adaptative faculty”29 are therefore to be associated with the innovative intermedial structure and the potential of the plot devices to be reinvented and adapted to local reception areas.