Reconfiguring Poetic Meaning into Cinema: An Intersemiotic and Art Based Approach to Poetry to Film Adaptation

ABSTRACT : This study examines how lyric poetry can be adapted into cinematic form without being subordinated to narrative-driven conventions. Focusing on the adaptation of Jante Arkidam, the research employs an art-based approach that integrates semiotic–hermeneutic analysis, intersemiotic theory, and creative practice. Rather than treating poetry as a latent narrative to be expanded into plot, the study approaches lyric poetry as a dense semiotic system whose meaning is symbolic, affective, and relational. The findings formulate a three-stage model of poetry-to-film adaptation consisting of poetic interpretation, intersemiotic reconfiguration, and narrative containment. Poetic interpretation identifies the symbolic and affective core of the source text; intersemiotic reconfiguration redistributes poetic meaning across cinematic modalities such as image, sound, rhythm, and spatial composition; and narrative containment provides minimal coherence without imposing causal closure. Together, these stages demonstrate that poetic meaning can be sustained cinematically when it is treated as semiotically transferable rather than narratively fixed. The study further shows that the commonly perceived incompatibility between poetry and cinema does not originate from poetry itself, but from cinema‘s conventional reliance on narrative clarity and linear causality. When cinematic form recalibrates these expectations, ambiguity, non-linearity, and affective intensity emerge as productive meaning-making strategies. Although grounded in a Sundanese cultural context, the research proposes a transferable methodological framework applicable to lyric poetry across cultures. By integrating intersemiotics and art-based research, the study contributes to broader debates on non-prose adaptation and creative media epistemology, positioning poetic logic as a viable foundation for cinematic form.

KEYWORDS – poetry to film adaptation; intersemiotics; art-based research; practice as research; cinematic poetics