Intertextual Adaptation in Mom's Guest: A Typical Example of Maximal Approach in Film Adaptation

Film adaptation is considered a controversial topic in comparative literature and cinema studies. Dudley Andrew (1945) has verified this subject in his various writings and has examined the possible relations between literary and cinematographic texts. He has also represented different categories about the nature and cause of film adaptation. In this paper, we rely on the theories of Dudley Andrew for enumerating various categories of film adaptation and we suggest a maximal approach for film adaptation which is related to concepts like intertextuality. Afterward, we apply this comparative approach to the literary and cinematographic texts of Mom's Guestm written by Moradi Kermani and directed by Mehrjui. According to Andrew's theories, the film adaptation of Mehrjui is based on "intersection" and could be considered a kind of intertextual adaptation which engenders advantages and acceptable performances. In fact, this successful adaptation is the representation of several separate texts. Therefore, the director, through expanding and modifying some parts of the source text, has been able to enrich the film adaptation version.