“Fair is foul, and foul is fair”: A carnivalesque approach to Justin Kurzel and Billy Morrissette’s cinematic adaptations of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Abstract

The conventional approach to literary adaptation, which insisted on rigid adherence to the source and denounced any deviation from the established text as unprofessional and negligent, has been substituted with attitudes that define the adaptation-source relation in new ways. Bakhtinian dialogism, as one of these approaches, redefines this relation in terms of a persistent contact between the two sides as the participants of a never-ending, all-inclusive network of relations. The idea of carnivalesque, a key part of Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism, can be used in adaptation studies to reflect both on the nature of adaptation-source relation and the internal mechanisms and techniques used by a particular adapter to reverse and suspend the orders and hierarchies established in its source work. Within this framework, the present study investigates Bakhtinian carnivalesque in Justin Kurzel and Billy Morrissette’s cinematic adaptations of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606). Kurzel’s Macbeth (2015), set in Scottish Highlands during the 11th century, seeks to retain the Shakespearean air while addressing its contemporary issues mostly by highlighting or adding to the elements of carnival within the play. Morrissette’s Scotland PA (2001) takes a radically different stance toward the play, though. He transforms Shakespeare’s bloody tragedy into a dark comedy about the revolt of the lower class against the social structure. The study suggests that while these two adaptations take different, and at times opposing, approaches toward the play Macbeth, they both point to the carnivalesque potential of the play which can be released in and adapted to various sociocultural contexts