Venus in Fur(s) – from the masochist text by Sacher-Masoch (1870) to the feminist celebratory adaptations by David Ives and Roman Polanski. (1st October 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Álvarez, Paula Talero
• Is Part Of: Journal of adaptation in film & performance. Volume 11:Number 2(2018)
• Page Start: 127
• Page End: 140
• Publication Date: 2018-10-01
• Subjects: Film adaptations -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Motion pictures and literature -- Periodicals; 791.43605
• DOI: 10.1386/jafp.11.2.127_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1753-6421

Abstract

The contemporary versions of the classic text Venus in Furs, written by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch in 1870, are a theatre play adapted by the playwright David Ives and a film by Roman Polanski released in 2013 that deconstruct the original text. From a masochist novel imbued with the dominant misogyny of that time, Polanski and David Ives develop a detailed study about human sexual identities and offer a new feminist reading of the text. The intermedial and intertextual changes applied to the novella and the results obtained prove the existence of a completely new reinterpretation.