engleski

Travelling East: Orientalism and the Costume Drama

In this presentation I propose to analyse the ways in which contemporary film adaptations of nineteenth century novels (centering on Jane Campion’s The Portrait of the Lady, 1996) portray and represent concepts of “the East“ and travelling east. The focus will be on the adaptations’ reliance on orientalist Victorian stereotypes of “the East“ – especially those of the colonial space – paradoxically not even used in the adapted novels: as the utopian space of the Other ; as an “exit- route” (Boehmer 1995: 27) for the tarnished men and fallen women of the metropole ; and – above all else – as a space in which the norms of the colonial centre do not apply and one’s desires and inhibitions therefore run free. By analysing the interplay of the directorial interventions and the effects of these changes on the overall narratives, I shall argue that the directors use such orientalist portrayals of “the East” (and colonial space in general) so as to open up the issues of desire suppressed or elided in the 19th century narratives, thus intertwining the Victorian silence on the colonial contexts and the silence on sexuality. In conclusion, I shall analyse the said uses and abuses of Victorian and orientalist stereotypes by looking at these costume dramas as elite cultural products for the global market.

orientalism; costume drama; long nineteenth century; stereotype; intervention

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