"Ti-Koyo and His Shark". Human-animal brotherhood from Clement Richer to Italo Calvino and Folco Quilici

Ti-Koyo e il suo pescecane [Ti-Coyo and His Shark] is a 1962 film by Italian film director and screenwriter Folco Quilici. Based on a novel by the Martinican writer Clement Richer entitled Ti-Coyo et son requin (Ti-Coyo and his [White] Shark, 1941) but adapted for cinema by Italo Calvino (who wrote...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Benvegnù, Damiano
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
Repositorio:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/25218
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10017/25218
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Animal studies
Postcolonial ecocriticism
Literary animal studies
Estudios de los animales
Ecocrítica postcolonial
Estudios literarios de los animales
Literatura
Medio ambiente
Literature
Environmental science
Descripción
Sumario:Ti-Koyo e il suo pescecane [Ti-Coyo and His Shark] is a 1962 film by Italian film director and screenwriter Folco Quilici. Based on a novel by the Martinican writer Clement Richer entitled Ti-Coyo et son requin (Ti-Coyo and his [White] Shark, 1941) but adapted for cinema by Italo Calvino (who wrote an actual short story on the subject, “Fratello pescecane” [Brother Shark]), Quilici’s film features the fraternal relationship between a boy and his beloved pet shark. This article investigates both the making of Ti-Koyo e il suo pescecane and the significanceof the human-animal relationship it presents. It thus first explores Richer’s novel in order to reveal how Calvino’s and Quilici’s versions have altered the original narrative as well as its postcolonial and post-pastoral meaning. It then examines how these transformations have affected the portrayal of the friendship between the human protagonist and the shark. The aim of this article is twofold. On the one hand, it argues that these three different versions of same story offer a perfect example of how contrasting representations of a similar environment might deeply affect both the cultural and the material relationships between human and non-human animals. On the other hand, it underlines how all of them also present a representation of an uncanny human-animal friendship capable of reminding us that we can actually love nature and its creatures for what they are.