“If I were a painter...” the problem of intermedial contexts of Nikolay Gogol's novel old world landowners

The article analyzes the problem of the intermedial reading of Gogol's novel The Old World Landowners , presented by the animated film He and She by M. Muat. The novelty of the work is determined by the application of the method of a comprehensive analysis to the texts dialogically connected with each other. The extent of adequacy of the creative reading of Gogol's novel by a contemporary film director is determined by the semantic reconstruction of an idyllic chronotope of the novel. It is noticed that in the film limiting the history of main characters only by mutual relations within a circle of a manor house, Gogol's idea about the confrontation between family and home space and forces of chaos and destruction, is kept. The director's technique of a circular composition is an artistic factor that can be compared to the key “moment” in painting that condenses all previous and subsequent events. A figurative ring formed by the images of an old oak can be seen as a semantic analogue of the idyllic circle of the manor. However, if in the novel this circle is destroyed from the inside, in the film it is preserved and affirmed thanks to the creative efforts of the film director. The idyllic world of M. Muat is conscious of the “evil spirit” of destruction, but its mission is to keep the moment of peace, love and quiet happiness. The director, thus, asserts love as the supreme and permanent value of human existence. Not following literally the text of Gogol's novel, M. Muat offers his own reading of those laws that form the core of Gogol's artistic world.