The document analyzes the adaptation of 'The Sheltering Sky' from print to screen, focusing on how adaptations appropriate and indigenize narratives to reflect different cultural contexts. It argues that while both the novel and film explore themes of individuality and inner journeys, they ultimately lead to contrasting conclusions and target American audiences through romanticized portrayals. The adaptation process reveals insights into representation and power dynamics within storytelling across mediums.

1. The Sheltering Sky:
From Print to Screen
Mariam Bedraoui
Master Student
Moroccan American Studies
Hassan II University, Casablanca

2. Outline
1. A Few Notes on Adaptation (What? How?
Where and When?)
2. Analysis
1. Root Narrative
2. Main Thesis
3. Illustration
3. Conclusion

3. A Few Notes on Adaptation
“Adaptation is an act of appropriation and this is
always a double process of interpreting and then
creating something new.” (Hutcheon:
2006, 20)
The Telling
mode
The
Showing
Mode
The
Participatory
Mode

4. Telling Showing
Linguistic
Codes
(Mc Farlane: 2007: 20)
Multiple
Codes
Linguistic,
visual and
aural
codes
Cinema-
specific
codes

5. What Happens in the Process of Adaptation?
“Such movement into a new environment is
never unimpeded. It necessarily involves
processes of representation and
institutionalization different from those at
the point of origin. This complicates any
account of the transplantation, transference,
circulation, and commerce of theories and
ideas.” (Said: 1987,226)

6. What Happens in the Process of Adaptation?
 “In shifting cultures and
languages, adaptations make
alterations that reveal much
about the larger context of
reception and production.
Adapters often “indigenize”
stories”.
(Hutcheon: 2006,
142)
 “Indigenization refers to the
process when people pick up or
choose what they want to
transplant to their own soil.
Adapters of travelling stories
exert power over what they
adapt.”
(Hutcheon: 2006,
The larger context
of reception and
production
Exerting power
over the
transplanted story
Indigenization

7. The Sheltering Sky:
American Identity between Print and
Screen

8. The Sheltering Sky: Root Narrative
1- Port, kit and
Tunner start the
voyage from Tangier.
2- The couple are
involved in sexual
affairs with other
partners.
3- They move to the
desert, and Port
insists on getting rid
of Tunner.
6- The couple move
further into the desert
and Port experiences
the first signs of
disease.
5- Port can not move
any further and Kit
nurses him in bed
4- Port died and kit
left the place and
joined a caravan
7- She becomes a
sex slave of a
Touareg young man
8- She is imprisoned
and enjoys his
company
9- She decides to
leave and is deported
back to Tangier
again.

9. Main Thesis
• Both the novel and film are concerned with
exploring the dangerous boundaries of individuality.
• They both make use of a foreign space to allegorise
the painful experience of an inner journey.
• However, The journey leads to opposite
destinations.

10. Illustration: Book Cover vs. Film Poster

11. Illustration: Book Cover Vs. Film Poster

12. 1- Port

13. Port is
• A traveller
• Critical
• Anti- war
• Non-
conformist

15. 2- Port and Kit

17. The Outing in the Film

19. Kit’s Journey

21. Bertolucci’s Comment on the Final Part
“Bertolucci: Yes, my great “betrayal” took place before filming the
first night that Kit and Belqassim spend together in the desert. I was
standing there next to the dunes, under the moon, looking at the
camels and the Tuaregs in the camp site, listening to the flutes, and
all of a sudden, I had this feeling of falsehood. At any rate, there was
this strong sensation that the last part of the film risked being
crushed beneath the weight of cliche. Then, discussing with the
Tuaregs I learnt that they deny that rape, or any form of carnal
violence , exist in their culture. Theirs is a matrimonial society. So it
occurred to me perhaps the end of the book was a kind of fantasy
on Bowles’ part. It was not to be taken seriously.”
(Sklarew and al: 2000, 2006)

22. Mernia

23. Conclusion
 The film attenuates the tensions between the
characters.
 It shifts the focus of themes from a quest for an
individual form of existence to a quest for belonging.
 It targets an American domestic audience and falls in
line with Hollywood’s romantic adventures.
 It nurtures the popular images of the orient revealed
in the novel.
 It made the novel accessible to a larger audience
and reinscribes the story within a collective
discourse.

24. References
 Bowles, Paul. The Sheltering Sky. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
Print.
 Cartmell, Deborah, and Imelda Wheelman. The Cambridge
Companion to Literature on Screen. Cambridge companions to
literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
 Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. New York: Routledge,
2006. Print.
 Kerrigan, Finola. Film Marketing. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Butterworth-
Heinemann, 2010. Print.
 Said, Edward W. The World, the Text, and the Critic. Cambridge,
Mass: Harvard University Press, 1983. Print.
 Sklarew, Bruce, Jefferson Kline, and Fabien S. Gerard.Bernardo
Bertolucci Interviews. Jackson, Miss: University Press of Mississippi,
2000. Print.