DOUBLE ADAPTATION IN THE FILM SOVIET MILK: HISTORICITY AND ADAPTATION FOR SCREEN

Kopsavilkums

Third of the films made in recent years in Latvia have been adaptations of stories made by Latvian authors about a historical event, person, time period, or they are set in the past. A historical event at the heart of any work is a kind of adaptation, interpretation, or opinion in the hopes of getting closer to the objective truth. An adaptation carries a similar responsibility.
According to the principles of adaptation studies this paper analyzes the film Soviet Milk (Mātes piens, dir. Ināra Kolmane, 2023), which is a screen adaptation of Nora Ikstena’s novel with the same title (2015). The plot line of the film covers period from 1945 to 1989. Is it possible to have a “correct” representation of historical events and a screen adaptation of a novel that satisfies both readers and viewers? The research compares representation of historical events in the film and the novel – analyzing the context of the creation of works, the contribution of authors and the methods by which history and its events are revealed in each of them.
The film Soviet Milk, on the one hand, narrows the plot and characters of the novel, due to the specificity of the audiovisual medium – a practice that is not only common, but inevitable adapting a novel for screen. On the other hand, historicity is expanded and tends towards objectivity, while in the novel it is a distinctly subjective experience and serves as a background for the individual struggle for survival and generational relations.