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COMMENTARY OF EDUCATING RITA

Educating Rita is a British production that, taking into account its characteristics as a
film, is very different than the works based on the dramatic principles proposed by
Aristotle. For that reason, here, they are going to be developed some aspects that
could show how to do that a film as Educating Rita could became in a dramatic play
based on Aristotle's principles.
Firstly, it is important to consider the aspects of the movie that have to be changed,
trimmed or synthesized to became more similar to those of a play. For example, it
exists the unit of action that according Aristotle must be the presence of one main
argument accompanied by some secondary.
That aspect is present in the film, but in some occasions a lot of importance is given to
the secondary arguments even above the principal. The unit of action could be
changed if the stories related with Deny or Julia take a real secondary place in the
play, allowing the work to have a real dramatic character given by the presence of a
single argument (based on Rita and Frank) that relies on other secondary actions that
do not overshadow or extend the work more than the necessary.
In the second place, we have another aspect that is related with the previous, the unit
of time, this is that the facts of a work may not exceed three days. But as we can see,
in Educating Rita, the events pass during more than three days, including long periods
of time in which several situations occur and they are not explicitly shown.
If the goal is to show the work as a dramatic play, that problem can be solved as the
previous one, the unit of action, since if the stories of secondary characters are
synthesized, also the duration is going to be reduced . In addition, it should be noted
that many of the events that happen between the main characters are detailed and

lengthen too, perhaps for the need of the film attract and catch their viewers, but those
needs are different in theater.
Finally, it is very important to consider another element proposed by Aristotle, the unit
of space which proposes that a dramatic play has to have a reduced place where the
events happen, something that is very different in the film because the story take place
in a lot of spaces and even in various countries.
For that reason, if we want to transform the film into a dramatic play, the variety of
spaces where the events take place have to be reduced. For example, it is not
necessary for the play and its elements be moved to another distant place, also the
events could be received as news or letters that come from somewhere else.
For concluding, it is important to realize that it is a proposal to convert a film in a
drama, but a drama based entirely on the concepts developed by Aristotle, because
today there are many ways to produce a play that do not always take into account
these concepts like unit of action, unit of time and unit of space.

Jessica Linares Cuervo.

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