Die Blechtrommel: Novel Into Film

Die Blechtrommel is the first novel written by German writer Günter Grass, which brought him great fame. In the year 1978, this novel was adapted into film by German director Volker Schl?ndorff. This film got many famous film awards between the years 1979-1982, which include the Oscar (Best Foreign Language Film of the Academy Award) in 1980, the Golden Palm in Cannes Film Festival in 1979 and the challenge award"Golden Bowl"in German Film Awards in 1979 and nine other film awards. In the year 1999, Günter Grass won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his"frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history"1. People have seen a great success in both the novel and the film. The adaption brought out the best in each other. In that time, people have seen a lot famous adapted films whose novel original work were very normal; or the novel is classic while its adaption got bad reputation and can't break the influence of the novel. Die Blechtrommel successfully set up an example in the art history. Both the novel and the film has already become the classic of each area.In this thesis, the theory of Narratology is fully used to compare and analyse the content and the strategy in both the novel and its adaption. Then the relationship and difference between novel and film is further discussed. The author thinks it is a win-win event adapting the novel Die Blechtrommel into film by Volker Schl?ndorff. The thesis is carried out as follows:The preface of this thesis first deals with Günter Grass'life and works briefly. And then a brief introduction of Volker Schl?ndorff is given. After that the author introduces the current study situation of Günter Grass and his works. Then an introduction of the novel Die Blechtrommel and its adaption with the current study situation is given.Chapter I is about the selection of narrative content. In traditional theory of narration, plot, character and scene are the most important parts in a story. These three parts both in the novel and its adaption are compared and analysed in this chapter. As to plot, the film took the first and the second section of the novel and made some abridgement and change. Some plots were deleted and some were changed. Some figures were deleted because of the abridgement made about the plot. The main character Oscar is analysed and on this foundation, the relationship between and in the characters is defined as triangle relationship and binary opposition. When it comes to the term of scene, due to different forms of art, the dealing with scene is also different and thus the meaning of each scene changes more or less.Chapter II is about the employment of the narrative strategy. According to modern Narratology, narrative time, narrative viewpoint and narrator is the main parts of a story. They are discussed in this chapter. As to time, the sequence of time, the duration of time and the frequency of time is what to be carried out in the first part of this chapter and thus the time of Die Blechtrommel and its adaption is compared and analysed. In the second part of this chapter, the narrator and the narrative viewpoint is mentioned. In the novel, the narrator Oscar is shifted between outside-homeotype narrator and inside-homeotype narrator fruently, while in the film Oscar is just an inside-homeotype narrator. The viewpoint of the novel is mainly the first person and sometimes the third person, while in the film it is the first person. This change serves the narration of the film.Chapter III is about the effect of adaption. In the first part of this chapter, the difference and relation between novel and film is discussed minutely. Though there are some links between the two forms of art, the difference between each other is still more. In the second part, the effect of adaption is explored. Oscar was remodelled by Volker Schl?ndorff. On the screen, he became a growing-up boy who brought a lot of sense of identity to the audience. The mention of terrorist incident was reduced to a audience-can-receive-degree. Anything about the religion critic that might lead to controversy was avoided. As a result, the irony effect in the film was not as strong as in the novel. And thus the film was more acceptable and they both finally got a win-win situation. However,it is a pity that the third part of the novel was not adapted into film due to the form of the latter.In the conclusion part, the pre-disscussed contents are summarised: the film took the subject mentioned in the novel that people should think back the wars happened in the 20th century; also the inner-focusing narration which is mostly used in the novel is carried on in the film. What the novel had achieved gave people a great expectation of the film, and that the film got great success made it possible that the novel became in vogue again.