The Construction Of A Modern Myth: From Ulysses To Bloom

This thesis is a study of how the newly issued Irish film Bloom transformed Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses into cinema medium.In this 5 chapter thesis, the author discusses the important roles Joyee and Ulysses played in literary history, explains the concepts of 'stream of consciousness'/'interior monologue' and 'fiee association', describes the novel's cinematographic writing techniques; introduces the historical and cultural currents that contributed to the production of two versions of film adaptation. The second chapter applies Metz's grand syntagrnatics analyzing the narrative mode of Bloom. The third chapter mainly focuses on the inter-text between Ulysses and Bible/Hamlet, discussing how the film represented cultural dialogue via parallel montage/ polyphone structure, fulfilling historical cycle through supplement opening and closing credits/cycle structure. The fourth chapter examines the production design of Bloom and depicts how visual language disenchanted and enhanced the novel's motif image via psychoanalytic discourse. In the last chapter, the author applies verfremdung and suture theory to the comparison and evaluation of the two versions of adaptation.The author thinks that' mainstream cinema' Bloom 're-read' Ulysses in new cultural-historical context, reconstructed modem myth through original narrative discourse, its spiritual faithfulness and intensified humantstic interpretation to this 'unfilmable' avant-garde novel would set an example for the possible upcoming adaptation.