The transformation of the war body on screen in Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth

Authors

  • Ketlyn Mara Rosa Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-7114.sig.2020.157227

Keywords:

Corpo bélico, Cinema, Shakespeare, Macbeth, Violência

Abstract

This article discusses how the 2015 filmic adaptation of Macbeth by Justin Kurzel is embedded in the social and political context of the 21st century in which the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq reverberate in the physical and psychological state of the soldier. In the film, the war body is scarred by multiple violent experiences of battle and emerges as a damaged individual, one that carries the viscerally traumatic past into the present. I analyze how Macbeth’s military body undergoes a downward spiraling journey from collective leader to lone tyrant that takes roots in his past violent experiences of immersion into a context of corporeal mutilation and death.

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Author Biography

  • Ketlyn Mara Rosa, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

    Bachelor degree in Letters - English - Language and Literature from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (2006). She participated in the exchange program of Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior/Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education (Capes/Fipse) to Wayne State University (2003), where she came into contact with cinematographic studies. She has a master’s degree in Letters from the Graduate Studies in English: Literary Studies at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (2015). In 2019, she completed her doctorate in Literature in the area of Literary and Cultural Studies in Graduate Studies in English at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. She had her Capes sandwich doctorate stay at the University of St. Andrews (2017) under the guidance of Professor Robert Burgoyne.

References

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BURNETT, M. T.; WRAY, R. “Introduction”. In: BURNETT, M. T.; WRAY, R. (ed.). Screening Shakespeare in the twenty-first century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006, p. 1-12.

CALDERWOOD, J. L. Shakespeare and the denial of death. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987.

CLARK, S.; MASON, P. “Introduction”. In: CLARK, S.; MASON, P. (ed.). Macbeth. London: Bloomsbury, 2018, p. 1-124. (The Arden Shakespeare).

DAVIES, A. Filming Shakespeare’s plays: the adaptations of Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Peter Brooke and Akira Kurosawa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

GLASMAN, A. “Making Macbeth: behind the scene”. VFX Magazine, Oct. 6, 2015. Available from: http://bit.ly/3eUbWy9. Access on: May 10, 2018.

HAGELIN, S. “Bleeding bodies and post-cold war politics: Saving Private Ryan and the gender of vulnerability”. In: RANDELL, K; REDMOND, S. (org.). The war body on screen. New York: Continuum, 2008, p. 102-119.

JACKSON, R. “Introduction: Shakespeare, films and the marketplace”. In: JACKSON, R. (ed.). The Cambridge companion to Shakespeare on film. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 1-12.

JORGENS, J. J. Shakespeare on film. London: Indiana University Press, 1977.

JUNGER, S. “How PTSD became a problem far beyond the battlefield”. Vanity Fair, May 7, 2015. Available from: http://bit.ly/3cAWyoM. Access on: May 17, 2018.

MATTES, A. “Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth: visually magnificent but dramatically unsatisfying”. The Conversation, Sept. 29, 2015. Available from: http://bit.ly/2BDhwGX. Access on: May 15, 2018.

MELBYE, D. Landscape allegory in cinema: from wilderness to wasteland. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

PARIS, C. The what and how of PTSD: understanding and moving beyond. Victoria: Friesen Press, 2016.

PARKER, A. “They came back: war and changing national identity”. In: RANDELL, K; REDMOND, S. (org.). The war body on screen. New York: Continuum, 2008, p. 86-101.

RANDELL, K.; REDMOND, S. “Introduction: setting the screen”. In: RANDELL, K; REDMOND, S. (org.). The war body on screen. New York: Continuum, 2008, p. 1-13.

WAGNER, M. “A king(dom) for a stage: the war body in and as performance”. In: RANDELL, K; REDMOND, S. (org.). The war body on screen. New York: Continuum, 2008, p. 50-63.

Audiovisual references

MACBETH. Justin Kurzel, United Kingdom: Studio Canal, 2015.

MACBETH – conference – (en) Cannes 2015. Channel: Festival de Cannes (Officiel). Available from: http://bit.ly/2Y3wIVk. Access on: May 18, 2018.

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Published

2020-07-08

Issue

Vol. 47 No. 54 (2020): The scenic space in audiovisual media: transits between theater and cinema

Section

Dossier

License

Copyright (c) 2020 Ketlyn Mara Rosa

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How to Cite

The transformation of the war body on screen in Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth. (2020). Significação: Journal of Audiovisual Culture, 47(54), 62-82. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-7114.sig.2020.157227