Skylarks

On the Film Adaptation of Kosztolányi’s Novel

Abstract

The first film adaptation of Kosztolányi’s novel Pacsirta (Skylark) (1923) was directed in 1963 by László Ranódy. Now, in 2022, Béla Paczolay made a TV-drama of the novel, with the same title. The latter, however, is mostly an hommage to Ranódy’s work. This gesture indeed raises the question of whether the adaptation—made in the 1960s and starring a Cannes award-winning actor (Antal Páger)—can be considered a masterpiece. In my paper, which discusses the historical context of the two works as well, I conclude that they are almost incomparable since the novel is cinematic, and the film is literary. Or in the terms that Linda Hutcheon’s (re)uses in her theory of adaptation, the novel is more for showing, while its film adaptation is for telling.