Tennessee Williams, Iranian Cinema, and Bakhtinian Dialogism: A Comparative Study of A Streetcar Named Desire and Biganeh

The history of literary adaptation is as long as the history of cinema itself. Given the undeniable fact that literary classics guaranteed a large number of viewers, it is no surprise that the first filmmakers turned to literature to gain their materials for the screen. Since the development of the field called adaptation studies, the relation between cinema and literature has been analyzed through numerous approaches. One of the most recent theories which can shed light on the unstudied interaction between the two sides from new perspective is dialogism as developed by the Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin. The present paper is set to perform a comparative analysis of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and its cinematic adaptation, Biganeh (Stranger), directed by Bahram Tavakoli. The research takes Bakhtin’s notions of unfinalizability and chronotope as two key constituents of dialogism to investigate changes the Iranian director has made in his version of the play. The study found that a literary work is open to changes if the adapter seeks to challenge it in an innovative way. It is in this unfinalized, dialogic process that new meanings are created. Thus, Tavakoli’s film proves that a classic play is both worthy and capable of being adapted for modern audiences if the filmmaker goes beyond common oversimplifications and represents unresolved tensions which lie beneath the veneer of the play.