UNIVERSIDADETECNOLGICAFEDERALDOPARAN

DEPARTAMENTOACADMICODECOMUNICAOEEXPRESSO
DEPARTAMENTOACADMICODELNGUASESTRANGEIRASMODERNAS
CursodeLicenciaturaemLetrasPortuguseIngls
LiteraturaAmericanaProf.Regina
Acadmicos:AnaJliaCallegari,RodrigoLucianiFaria

AcomparativestudybetweenHemingwaysTheOldManandtheSeaanditsmovie
adaptationbyAleksandrPetrov

Ernest Hemingway was an American writer and journalist, he was born on July
21st, 1899 and deceased on July 2nd, 1961. Hemingway produced most of his works
between the 1920s and 1950s. His economical style is recognized as one of the most
influential of the 20th Century. As he was a journalist during the twenties he became a
member of the group of expatriate Americans in Paris, which is described in his first
important work, The Sun Also Rises (1926). Later in 1929 he was as successful in A
Farewell to Arms, it is a study of an American ambulance officers disillusionment in the
war, it is important to remember that Hemingway had worked in an American
Ambulance during The first World War. After that, he applied his experiences as a
reporter during the Spanish civil war as the background for his masterpiece For Whom
the Bells Tolls (1940). In 1952, he published his short novel The Old Man and the Sea,
it tells the story of an old fishermans journey, and his struggle with an enormous fish and
also with the sea. In 1954, he won The Nobel Prize in Literature for his mastery of the
art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the
influencethathehasexertedoncontemporarystyle".
The Old Man and the Sea is a novel published by Hemingway in 1952. It was
his last work published during his lifetime. Hemingway was awarded with the Pulitzer
Prize for Fiction for The Old Man and the Sea. The novel tells the story of Santiago, an
old fisherman that is believed to have bad luck and could not fish any fish for 84 days.
Because of that, Santiago wants to prove himself worthwhile and goes out on a three
days fishery. He is able to catch the biggest fish of his life, but later on it is eaten by
sharks.
Based on Hemingways novel we have the short film The Old Man and the Sea
by Aleksandr Petrov, released on 1999. It was awarded with the Academy Award for
Animated Short Film. Regarding the different medias that the story is portrayed, on
Petrovs work we have the addition of sound effects and a soundtrack that gives us a
replacement to the impossibility to narrate the story. The short movie was the first
largeformat animated film ever made. The movie was all made in pastel oil paint on
glass, and they were made using his fingertips instead of a paintbrush. After the
paintings were done he photographed them Petrov arranged them in a movie. The
entire process took him two years. Although it tells basically the same story as
Hemingways novel, it is possible to notice some small differences between the two
works.
Comparing Hemingways novel and Petrovs movie it is possible to notice
some similarities and differences between the two works. As we said before, the plot is
almost the same. He also creates into the movie the atmosphere of the novel, while
watching the movie is possible to perceive the same feelings as we can comprehend
while reading Hemingways novel. As differences, the most clear is on the narrative
structure. Petrovs work puts emphasis on different aspects of the story while others are
kept apart. On general, it seems that the story on the film runs faster than on the novel.
Small things such as the scene in which a bird flies near the boat and lands on the
fishing line are not that important, but the lack of the old mans thoughts regarding his
bad luck and the shark attack give us a different perspective. As a consequence,
because we are not shown Santiagos lamentations about his bad luck, it is not possible
to create the same empathy feeling towards him as we do on the novel. Both points can
be explained by the different medias in which the story is told, but the second one can
berelatedtotheneedtogivethevieweramoredramaticclimax.
As we can see, Hemingways novel and Petrovs film have similarities and
differences. The most prominent one is the sensation that the story on the film is short
than it is on the novel, though it does not affect the plot at all. Apart from that, the movie
emphasises different aspects of the narrative, such as the shark attack. But those things
does not implies in a lesser quality of any of the parts, with both of them being great
worksofartthatcanbeappreciatedindividuallyorincomparison.