dramatica

DRAMATICA
2/2009

ANUL LIV 2009
S T U D I A
UNIVERSITATIS BABEŞ – BOLYAI
DRAMATICA
THEATRE, FILM, MEDIA
2
Desktop Editing Office: 51
ST
B.P. Haşdeu, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, phone + 40 264-40.53.52
CUPRINS – CONTENT – SOMMAIRE – INHALT
Special Issue: Theatricality, filmicity and spectatorship
Articole & Studii
MIRUNA RUNCAN, “Fate Is Never Final?” Why Movies Reenact RPG
Experiences.........................................................................................................3
MIHAI GĂDĂLEAN, Beating the Hell Out of Sado-Masochism? Towards
a Cinema of the Oppressed Through Michael Haneke’s Funny Games...........21
MIHAI PEDESTRU, Modelling Communication in the Digital Era.....................27
DORU POP, Adapting Shakespeare’s adaptations Image, content and
narrative problems (and solutions) in Shakespeare’s adaptations, a
study case on Romeo and Juliet........................................................................43
ŞTEFANA POP-CURŞEU, Qu’est-ce que la « théâtralité » ? Petite recherche
historique..........................................................................................................55
RALUCA SAS MARINESCU, Theatrical Communication and the Reception
of Theater Performances. Theories of Reception. Case Study: “Krum,
Ectoplasm” and the Message’s Reconstitution.................................................71

MIHAI ANDREI LEAHA, The Curse of the Hedgehog. An Anthropological
Film by Dumitru Budrală.................................................................................79
DARIA IOAN, Orchestration dramaturgique d’un outrage..................................89
BIANCA IMELDA JEREMIAS, Scenography-Scene Design. The Role of
the Scene Designer in the Development of a Performance.............................101
RAUL BOTHA, Balanta/The Oak (1992) - The history of a reception -.............107
CAMELIA TOMA, Le prix de l’amateur des productions roumaines – l’impact
des films de Nae Caranfil sur le spectateur (à peine) sorti de l’anonymat –......115
ALEXANDRA SOFONEA, Radio Drama and Mihai Zirra................................125

STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABEŞ-BOLYAI, DRAMATICA, LIV, 2, 2009
“FATE IS NEVER FINAL?” WHY MOVIES REENACT RPG
EXPERIENCES
MIRUNA RUNCAN
ABSTRACT. Starting from a complex debate in a focus-group with four teenagers
(aged between thirteen and fifteen), on why and how they enjoy or dislike the
movies based on role-playing games (RPG), this paper tries to raise some questions
about the differences and relationship between the condition of the spectator and
that of the computer-gamer. Its central focus is on the circular road of self-
presence representations, from linear narrative to level-stratified experiencing of
the computer game, and back. After a short summary of the current tendencies in
interpreting the mutations from spectatorship to game-controlling representations,
the paper will try to sketch a hypothesis-theory concerning the displacement of the
moral and aesthetical values, as classical foundation of audience motivations in
cultural consumption, towards the “experience” value, seen as a chance to identify,
build and consume different and alternative constructs of the Subject/Self.
The paper-essay constitutes a small part from The Everyday Drama Research
and Creation Program, a complex interdisciplinary research project conducted over the
last five years by the author and by C.C. Buricea-Mlinarcic PhD, both from the Theatre
and Television Faculty of the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj, Romania. The actual
theme/field of this program – “The X-Men & Women Generation”- focuses on the
young people’s representations of self based on their cultural consumption. The
Everyday Drama Research and Creation Program was awarded a two year grant from
the Romanian Ministry of Culture (2007-2008) and produces empirical and theoretical
studies, video-productions, written journalism, plays and theatre productions.
Keywords: Video games, film, theatre, spectatorship
ARGUMENTS FOR REVISITING SPECTATORSHIP
„Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in”.
Leonard Cohen, Anthem
At the end of a level-episode from the well-known computer game, Prince of
Persia, the hero meets a powerful and aggressive enemy who pretends to know the
hero’s fate. The enemy attacks but the hero jumps away, fends off and cries from
the depths of his soul, before executing the enemy: “Fate is never final!” Can we
imagine a more accurate and expressive line to emphasize the pure “jouissance” of
the gamer when he manages to master his/her skills?

MIRUNA RUNCAN
4
Fate is an artificial concept, partly rational – in its causality dimension -, partly
metaphysical – in its external, deterministic, freedom-annihilating dimension. The
role-playing game abolishes – even for a while – the perception of one’s individual
destiny, and invalidates fears of implacable fate, by the replacement it operates
between the real and the fictional identity of the player/gamer.
But doesn’t film or theatre watching operate in the same way? No, because fictional
films and theatre performances operate by interpretative-mediated transfers, while
Role Playing Games permit to the player much more...
In my childhood (but I am sure even in our days, in some courtyard or in any
playground) things were, somehow, the same, even if not technologically-based.
Two or more boys and girls agreed (with some difficulty) on a scenario, made the
casting and used – based on their will and skills – mimetic schemes in order to
perform a fictional situation. “I’ll be the Witch, you’ll be the Knight. Ana will be the
Princess; fat-boy will be the Dragon!” “Why me?”- fat-boy was always predisposed to
complain. “I was the Dragon last time, I’m bored. Let’s change for once!”
Obviously, in my childhood, the role-playing games - usually based on fairy tales,
novels, comic-books or TV series – had elastic rules, the narrative could always be
modified as you went along, and the casting-performing actions could always
admit free improvising procedures. Taking the risk of parodist reactions, the fat-
boy could perform, from time to time, not only as Knight, but also as Princess. But,
still, fate was final: the narrative core was kept intact; the moral judgment was,
more or less, the same each time.
From Moreno (1953) to Goffman (1959), the meaning, functions and consequences
of role-playing became constant topics for anthropological, psychological, sociological
or artistic research. But, between the therapeutic re-enacting and reinsertion of self
and the everyday negotiation of usual social roles, right in the middle, lays the
boiling point of pleasure: the pleasure of transgressing predetermination. This
crucial point legitimizes and underlies the joy of playing – by investing you, body
and soul, into – a story different than your own. This crucial point is even older
than humanity, insofar as ethology confirms the mimetic procedures and the role
distribution in so many species that display social behaviors. Its importance is
based on the fact that it contains the dialectical energies of both acting and
watching, otherwise judiciously distributed in any type of culture, old or new.
Actor and spectator are, in a role playing game, one and the same. The frame, the
dramatic action, the performativity, the competences and abilities, overlap and melt
into free enjoyment. What can be more different from daily life? I believe that this
position of the human being, deeply rooted into the subconscious ground of
individuals and communities, reveals that role-playing games are not only a general
practice, but also, in our days, one with expansionistic tendencies. And thus, it
engages us to re-think – more than ever – the status and the dynamics of the
relationship between actor, acting, framing and spectator.