Novélisation comme traduction intersémiotique: Cinéma de Tanguy Viel

In the epoch of the often declared decline of literature, which is moving away from print, considered to be an obsolete medium, and trying to find its place in new media, Tanguy Viel, against these tendencies, undertakes a transposition from the visual to the verbal. His novel, not accidentally entitled Cinéma, is one of the most original examples of novelisation, a process involving an intersemiotic translation of visual codes into verbal signs. In contrast to typical novelisations, which are usually an element of commercial exploitation of a particular film’s popularity, Cinéma consists in an artistic transfer of a film to a literary text. Basing on theories of novelisation, this article seeks to demonstrate how Tanguy Viel uses words and narrative techniques to verbalise and narrativise a film.