Ambivalence of social and private in the film text Gattaca by Andrew Niccol and the story Ivan Ivanovich by Mykola Khvylovy

In both discourses, the dress changes, disguise is protracted as an acquired “body technique”, that is an activity mediated by the terms and conditions of the society, though not compulsory, but obligatory for the characters in order to carry on their function in terms of personal autonomy and survival. An imposed on themselves mode of living has voluntary and involuntary traits. For instance, when Vincent learns he needs to modify his body attributes he is unwilling to alter it, but eventually, he yields to it. Ivan Ivanovich and Marfa Halaktionovna's clothes behaviour is utterly deliberate and intentional, though it does not fool the implied reader regarding the hypocritical connotations. The characters of the studied discourses are shaping their destinies on a falsehood basis. Nevertheless, Vincent Freeman's intentions are expounded owing to natural injustice. Since it is possible to bypass the genetic flaws in advance, Vincent decides to find a similar loophole on his own, thus proving the saying “Where there's a will, there's a way”.

Ethan Hawke's character degrades the notion of “truth” in that respect that he switches the biological body parts of his onto Jerome's. Vincent assumes to everyone his validity, he changes their perception perspective and transforms into a full-fledged member of the society of control. Moreover, he controls every bit of his flesh to stay Jerome Morrow as long as he will manage. Deleuze argued, “[...] control societies function with a third generation of machines, with information technology and computers, where the passive danger is noise and the active, piracy and viral contamination.” (Deleuze, 1995, p. 180). With regard to Vincent, it means technology is liable to mislead people, lie to us, counterfeit the subjective reality. Disciplinary society is grounded on the strategies of confinement, and for him, it is his flesh; he wants to break through the dominating power of society represented by the body. But Vincent cannot break away entirely from the system that he desires to escape from. That is why he sets an ultimate purpose for himself - to become an astronaut with his damaged body. However, according to Deleuze, after World War II we have started to move towards the control society in which confinement is no longer the main strategy, instead permanent sway and immediate communication prevail (Deleuze, 1995, p. 174). Nonetheless, the Gattaca premises resemble a sort of enclave to enter, which is not that easy. In this respect, Antonio says to his elder son, “For God's sake, Vincent, don't you understand. The only way you'll see the inside of a spaceship is if you're cleaning it!”

Both discourses have indicative prefaces: Gattaca's (one comes from the Holy Writ and the second one is the quote of Willard Gaylin, PhD Bioethicist) imply the right to defy one's destiny, one's self, the Other, the system who always tend to condemn or praise the object. It does also mean that one is able to distance oneself from the role he is unwilling to play. Hence, to become an emancipated body Vincent has to dispose of the true identity evidences every morning, to forge the medical tests, that is preparing himself to offer up a subjective version of the truth. Otherwise, he remains the body in pain. Ivan Ivanovich¹ s (from volume 2 of Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls) denotes three points essential for Khvylovy's entire oeuvre: that of a small fry, backstreet (zaulok) and the back of beyond (hlush). Nook and backwoods are the topos of a small fry existence, according to Viktoriia Zengwa (Zengwa, 2012, p. 64). Moreover, these are also the terminal points of the main characters' quest for beau ideal in the many works of the Ukrainian writer.

Conclusion

Thought is the process that cinema and literature stimulate, for it is produced by images that in their turn are the subject of both optic and mental processes. The studied works have been chosen for contrastive analyses by virtue of the same conceptual strain in them that of a thought, namely that both the implied reader and the implied spectator can be reflective towards the discourse, to process the obtained via communication data, are able to relate their feelings, but not just for the sake of comparison. The politics of “information”, therefore, invests to ideological oppositions collapse as shown in Gattaca (the repugnance between “valid” / “invalid”) and Ivan Ivanovich (the subjugation of a socially adapted human). Film text under scrutiny on the storytelling and plot level is characterized by motivation, and the narrative structure of it accounts for and articulates the telos achievement. Subject to David Bordwell's explications (2006), Gattaca belongs to classical Hollywood cinema (has the discrete part structure, double plotline and identification with a hero, both in introjective and projective sense).

The psychological depth understanding of the characters' motivations and emotions in Ivan Ivanovich is explicated by virtue of psychosocial mask they apply. Both the author and the extradiegetic narrator intend the implied reader to establish personal connection to the characters by way of harmonizing the warring feelings evoked in them in the course of reading. Among the masks most prominently stands out that of “persona-mask” to aid mimicry (acquiring new social and economic standing). Film and narrative texts bring before the addressees the intersubjective “life-spaces” of the characters: it means we perceive, we grasp the “information” across temporalities and spatialities that are cohering the intersubjective world in one piece. The studied discourses present that kind of both temporal and spatial reality which was familiar to the authors as well as they reflected the corresponding ideological spheres (corresponding social practices, structures, and contradictions).

What is at issue in the studied works is an idea that the inner identity requires to be concealed; this is why Vincent needs to renew the disguise practice each day which eventually takes him up in the rocket and this is why Khvylovy's titular character, who has become one of the perpetrators of the crushing state socialism machine himself, reverts to dressing up; he is socially ambiguous. Hence, there lies notable, essential difference in the characters: Vincent Freeman demonstrates nobility and grandeur of his persona; he sets the role pattern for others alike, he evolves from subjugated (oppressed) body (foremost due to the biological condition of his body) to a sovereign who reigns and controls it solely, whereas Ivan Ivanovich, on the contrary, proves to be a low ranker, the ego-constituting, narcissistic subject, one who is socially internalized and in whom sovereign law is applied, enforced and made visible. Thus, we get quite opposite evidences of contemporary male identity constitution, though it is split and fragmentary, not least because of paranoia (most notably in Ivan Ivanovich) which is at the heart of “the culture of surveillance” as per Foucauldian theory.

Бібліографічний список

1. Безхутрий Ю.М., 2006. Оповідання М. Хвильового «Іван Іванович». Іронія як засіб формування художнього світу. Вивчаємо українську мову та літературу, 19-21, с. 40-44.

2. Зборовська Н., 2003. Психоаналіз і літературознавство: посібник. Київ: Академвидав.

3. Зенгва В.О., 2012. Художня антропологія прози М. Хвильового: герой як феномен культури. Кандидат наук. Дисертація. Харків. нац. ун-т ім. В.Н. Каразіна.

4. Мочернюк Н.Д., 2017. Інтермедіальність: термін, концепція, методологія. Прикарпатський вісник НТШ. Слово [онлайн], 4(40), с. 207-214.

5. Плющ Л., 2018. Його таємниця, або «Прекрасна ложа» Хвильового. Київ: Видавничий дім «КОМОРА».

6. Руденко М.І., 2004. Наративна структура художньої прози Миколи Хвильового. Кандидат наук. Дисертація. Київський національний університет ім. Тараса Шевченка.

7. Цюп'як І.К., 2002. Поетика повістей Миколи Хвильового. Кандидат наук. Дисертація. Дніпро. нац. ун-т.

8. Bakhtin M., 1990. The Problem of Content, Material, and Form in Verbal Art. In: M. Holquist and V. Liapunov (eds.). Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical Essays. Translated by V. Liapunov. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 257-325.

9. Banner O., 2011. The Postracial Imagination: Gattaca's Imperfect Science. Discourse, 2(33), pp. 221-241.

10. Bordwell D., 2006. The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies. Berkeley: University of California Press.

11. Brotz D., 2015. Dostojewskis »Der Idiot« im Spielfilm: Analogien bei Akira Kurosawa, Sasa Gedeon und Wim Wenders. transcript Verlag, Bielefeld.

12. Clayton J., 2003. Genome Time: New Age Evolution, The Gold Bug Variations, and Gattaca. Charles Dickens in Cyberspace: The Afterlife of the Nineteenth Century in Postmodern Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 166-189.

13. Deleuze G., 1995. Negotiations, 1972-1990. Translated by Martin Joughin. New York: Columbia University Press.

14. Deleuze G., 2001. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

15. Foucault M. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 2^nd ed. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books.

16. Foucault M., 1983. The subject and power. In: H. Dreyfus, P. Rabinow (Eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics: 2nd ed.,). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 208-226.

17. Hejmej A., 2010. Komparatystyka kulturowa: interpretacja i egzystencja. Teksty Drugie, 5, pp. 53-64.

18. Jung C.G., 1969. Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. In G. Adler & R.F.C. Hull (eds.), Collected Works of C. G. Jung, 2^nd ed. Vol. 9, Part 1: Princeton University Press, pp. i-iv.

19. Khvylovy M., 1960. Ivan Ivanovich. In: George S. N. Luckyj (transl. with an introd.) Stories from the Ukraine. New York: Philosophical Library, pp. 160-214.

20. Marsen S., 2004. Against heritage: Invented identities in science fiction film. Semiotica. 152(1/4), pp. 141-157.

21. Merleau-Ponty M., 1968. The Visible and the Invisible, followed by Working Notes. In: C. Lefort ed. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

22. Merleau-Ponty M., 2013. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Donald A. Landes. New York: Routledge.

23. Metz, Chr., 1982. Psychoanalysis and Cinema : The Imaginary Signfier. In: Stephen Heath and Colin MacCabe, eds. Translated by Celia Britton, Annwyl Williams, Ben Brewster and Alfred Guzzetti. London: Macmillan.

24. Niccol A., 2008. Gattaca [DVD]. Munchen: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

25. Platzgummer, V., 2003. Die Errettung der Menschheit: Studien zu den Science Fiction-Filmen Gattaca und Matrix. Marburg: Tectum Verlag.

26. Turner Br.S., 2008. The Body & Society: Explorations in Social Theory. 3^rd ed. London: SAGE Publications.

27. Wolf W., 2005. Intermediary. In: D. Herman, M. Jahn and Marie-Laure Ryan (eds.). The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, pp. 252-256.

28. Wolf W., 2017. Selected Essays on Intermediality by Werner Wolf (1992-2014): Theory and Typology, Literature-Music Relations, Transmedial Narratology, Miscellaneous Transmedial Phenomena. In: Walter Bernhartd (ed.). Leiden / Boston: Brill / Rodopi

References

1. Bakhtin M., 1990. The Problem of Content, Material, and Form in Verbal Art. In: M. Holquist and V. Liapunov (eds.). Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical Essays. Translated by V. Liapunov. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 257-325.

2. Banner O., 2011. The Postracial Imagination: Gattaca''s Imperfect Science. Discourse, 2(33), pp. 221-241.

3. Bezkhutryi Yu., 2006. Mykola Khvylovy's Short Story Ivan Ivanovich: Irony as the Means of Artistic World Construction [Opovidannia M. Khvylovoho “Ivan Ivanovich”: Ironiia yak zasib formuvannia khudozhnoho svitu]. Vyvchaiemo ukrainsku movu ta literaturu, 1921, pp. 40-44. (in Ukrainian)

4. Bordwell D., 2006. The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies. Berkeley: University of California Press.

5. Brotz D., 2015. Dostojewskis »Der Idiot« im Spielfilm: Analogien bei Akira Kurosawa, Sasa Gedeon und Wim Wenders. transcript Verlag, Bielefeld.

6. Clayton J., 2003. Genome Time: New Age Evolution, The Gold Bug Variations, and Gattaca. Charles Dickens in Cyberspace: The Afterlife of the Nineteenth Century in Postmodern Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 166-189.

7. Deleuze G., 1995. Negotiations, 1972-1990. Translated by Martin Joughin. New York: Columbia University Press.

8. Deleuze G., 2001. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

9. Foucault M., 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 2^nd ed. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books.

10. Foucault M., 1983. The subject and power. In: H. Dreyfus, & P. Rabinow (Eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics: 2nd ed.,). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 208-226.

11. Hejmej A., 2010. Komparatystyka kulturowa: interpretacja i egzystencja. Teksty Drugie, 5, pp. 53-64.

12. Jung C.G., 1969. Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. In G. Adler, R.F.C. Hull (eds.), Collected Works of C.G. Jung, 2^nd ed. Vol. 9, Part 1: Princeton University Press, pp. i-iv.

13. Khvylovy M., 1960. Ivan Ivanovich. In: George S. N. Luckyj (transl. with an introd.) Stories from the Ukraine. New York: Philosophical Library, pp. 160-214.

14. Marsen S., 2004. Against heritage: Invented identities in science fiction film. Semiotica. 152(1/4), pp. 141-157.

15. Merleau-Ponty M., 1968. The Visible and the Invisible, followed by Working Notes. In: C. Lefort ed. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

16. Merleau-Ponty, M., 2013. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Donald A. Landes. New York: Routledge.

17. Metz Chr., 1982. Psychoanalysis and Cinema: The Imaginary Signifier. In: Stephen Heath and Colin MacCabe, eds. Translated by Celia Britton, Annwyl Williams, Ben Brewster and Alfred Guzzetti. London: Macmillan.

18. Mocherniuk N.D., 2017. Intermedialnist: termin, kontseptsiia, metodolohiia [Intermediality: term, conception, methodology/ Precarpathian Bulletin of the Shevchenko Scientific Society, Word [onlain], 4(40), s. 207-214. (in Ukrainian)

19. <

20. Niccol A., 2008. Gattaca [DVD]. Munchen: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

21. Platzgummer V., 2003. Die Errettung der Menschheit: Studien zu den Science Fiction-Filmen Gattaca und Matrix. Marburg: Tectum Verlag.

22. Plyushch L., 2018. His secret, or Khvylovy's “Beautifil bed” [Yoho taiemnytsia, abo «Prekrasna lozha» Khvylovoho/ Kyiv: Vydavnychyi dim “KOMORA”. (in Ukrainian)

23. Rudenko M.I., 2004. Naratyvna struktura khudozhnoi prozy Mykoly Khvylovoho [Narrative Structure of the Artistic Prose by M. Khvylovy]. Kandydat nauk. Dysertatsiia. Kyivskyi natsionalnyi universytet im. Tarasa Shevchenka. (in Ukrainian)

24. Tsyupyak I.K., 2002. Poetyka povistei Mykoly Khvylovoho [Poetics of Stories of Mykola Khvylyovyj]. Kandydat nauk. Dysertatsiia. Dnipro. nats. un-t. (in Ukrainian)

25. Turner Br.S., 2008. The Body & Society: Explorations in Social Theory. 3^rd ed. London: SAGE Publications.

26. Wolf W., 2005. Intermediality. In: D. Herman, M. Jahn and Marie-Laure Ryan (eds.). The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, pp. 252-256.

27. Wolf W., 2017. Selected Essays on Intermediality by Werner Wolf (1992-2014): Theory and Typology, Literature-Music Relations, Transmedial Narratology, Miscellaneous Transmedial Phenomena. In: Walter Bernhartd (ed.). Leiden / Boston: Brill / Rodopi,

28. Zborovska N., 2003. Psykhoanaliz i literaturoznavstvo [Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism]. Kyiv: Akademvydav. (in Ukrainian)

29. Zengwa V.O., 2012. Khudozhnia antropolohiia prozy M. Khvylovoho: heroi yak fenomen kultury [Art Anthropology of the Prose of M. Khvylovyy: A Hero as a Phenomenon of Culture]. Kandydat nauk. Dysertatsiia. Kharkiv. nats. un-t im. V.N. Karazina.

Размещено на Allbest.ru