Screening the Metatheatrical: Jan Švankmajer's 'Faust' as Marlovian Adaptation

Duxfield, A ORCID: 0000-0002-7250-4166 (2019) Screening the Metatheatrical: Jan Švankmajer's 'Faust' as Marlovian Adaptation. Borrowers and Lenders: the journal of Shakespeare and appropriation, 12 (1).

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Abstract

This article considers relationship between Marlowe's Dr Faustus and the 1994 film, Faust, by the Czech surrealist filmmaker, animator and puppeteer Jan Švankmajer. Švankmajer's film, which splices modern live cinema with claymation and self-consciously archaic puppetry, is liberal in its adaptation of its various sources (ranging from Goethe to Czech puppeteering tradition), a fact which perhaps accounts for the lack of attention it has received from Marlowe critics. With the aim of addressing this lacuna, this essay argues that, even in its scenes which deviate most clearly from Dr Faustus, Švankmajer's Faust persistently amplifies features of Marlowe's play that have been the subject of critical discussion, most notably its blending of medieval and early modern modes of representation and its equation of theatrical performance with the practice of magic. Švankmajer's film, I hope to show, represents an adaptation of and commentary upon Marlowe’s play of which discussion is long overdue.

Item Type:	Article
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	24 Jan 2018 15:45
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 06:42
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3016776