Résumé

This study investigates the influence of reading the novel (Mrs Dalloway 1925) on the construction of the feminine identity in the audiovisual (The hours 2002). The author of the novel, a reader, and the protagonist of the book Mrs. Dalloway, signed by Virginia Woolf, share the guiding line of the novel The hours written by Michael Cunningham (1998 USA) and echo the concerns of three women, living in different generations, in the 114-minutes audiovisual. How does the memory regarding the feminine character during the first decades of the XX century, as described by Virginia Woolf, sustain the cinematographic narrative? Sergei Eisenstein’s texts will guide the re-reading of cinematographic foundations regarding the intellectual montage used in the construction of the feminine. To what extent does the use of intertextuality and polyphony contribute to the elaboration of the protagonists’ cultural transformations over time? Issues related to intertextual polyphonic imagery will be based on Julia Kristeva’s and Mikhail Bakhtin’s works. The methodological approach will be the film analysis, with special attention given to the construction of the feminine identity in The hours. The theoretical fundamentals will be provided by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari texts. This analysis intends to elucidate how the approach adopted by Stephen Daldry culminates in: an ending for Virginia Woolf, a path for Laura Brown and a new beginning for Mrs.Dalloway.