Intersemiotic Translations of Greek Popular Films in the Film Industry and Media

What is it about?

This paper examines cultural texts and their place in the Greek semiosphere. More particularly, it delves into intersemiotic translations or adaptations or remakes of masterpieces of, the so-called, Golden Age of Greek cinema, which are deeply engraved in the Greek collective cultural memory. These cultural texts assume yet further value many decades after they were created, through three semiotic choices involving a translational dimension: their colourisation, their cinematic adaptation, and their amateur remakes hosted on social media and other internet sites. Assuming that the original texts are located at the centre of the Greek semiosphere, this study aims to show whether these new texts, the metatexts, are placed next to their originals or whether they coexist along the periphery or near the borders of the Greek semiosphere, an element that will determine the extent to which they will be accepted by contemporary Greeks. The study shows that the popularity of new cultural texts, which belong to the comedy genre, is increasing due to the desire of film audiences to participate through these intersemiotic translations (metatexts) in the popularity of the original cultural texts (prototexts) that are considered cultural myths.

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