Between Suppression and Excess – Tennessee Williams in American Cinema of the 1950s
Patrycja Włodek
kwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.plUniversity of the National Education Commission, Krakow (Poland)
Abstract
If the plays of Tennessee Williams seem designed more for the cinema than the theatre, they owe it to a number of films shot in the 1950s and 1960s in Hollywood, whose makers were able to combine directorial talent and actors’ instinct with controversial issues, and – despite the censorship present at the time – skillfully present issues related to eroticism and violence present in the arts. Adapters of Williams’ dramas had to balance between content and characters oversaturated with sex (including sex considered to be non-normative) and the determinants of Hays Code. An interesting paradox is that although the plays were significantly censored in the process of adaptation, they still preserved their subversive potential, at the same time fitting the mood and conventions popular in the Hollywood of the 1950s (e.g. family melodrama) – which stretched between suppression and moral conservatism and excess and advancing permissiveness.
Keywords:
Tennessee Williams, Hays Code, Hollywood, excessReferences
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Authors
Patrycja Włodekkwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
University of the National Education Commission, Krakow Poland
Doktor nauk o sztuce, absolwentka socjologii i filmoznawstwa na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim; pracuje na Uniwersytecie Pedagogicznym im. KEN w Krakowie. Autorka rozprawy doktorskiej Czarny kryminał Raymonda Chandlera w literaturze i filmie oraz tekstów o tematyce filmowej publikowanych w tomach zbiorowych i czasopismach naukowych. W kręgu jej zainteresowań znajdują się zagadnienia z zakresu historii kina, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem historii kinematografii amerykańskiej.
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