| Abstract (english) | Slobodan Novak (1924—2016), a Croatian prose writer, novelist and essayist, in his works he created one of the most important oeuvres of recent Croatian literature. Recognizable writing, exceptional style, polished sentences, rhythmic syntax, devastating irony, pungent humour, modernist orientation, existential pondering, reflections on identity, memorable characters, wondrous imagination, Mediterranean symbolism has been meticulously built over almost 70 years of creation. Ante Babaja (1927—2010) is one of the most respected Croatian film directors, and like Novak, the author of a small but anthological artistic biography. With Novak, among other things, he shares an adherence to the modernist approach, fragmentation of exposure, structure of the work that is carefully thought out, a masterful performance, a unique combination of poetics, psychology, irony and philosophy, and his oeuvre gives the impression of coherence and thoughtfulness rare in Croatian film history. This paper will examine the Mediterranean component of some works of these two great Croatian artists, and with the focus on Novak’s novels Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh and Lost Homeland as well as Babaja’s film adaptations of these novels, it will explore the way in which the Mediterranean spirit merges into their literary and cinematic work as its constituent element, and participates in the shaping of man, space and time at all levels, from structural, symbolic, ideological, existential, identity, linguistic to poetic, narrative and the level of film language. |
