Christian Images in Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth (2015)

Abstract

Justin Kurzel’s film, Macbeth (2015) demonstrates a large number of Christian symbols and images. This comparative study seeks the relation between the Protestantism discourse of the Elizabethan era, and the religious visualizations and images used in Kurzel’s movie including the Cross, paintings, costumes and mise-en-scene. By applying Linda Hutcheon’s theory of adaptation to exploring the film, the meaning of these images can be found through contextualization. How Kurzel creates a new way to visualize the main socio-historical ideas of the original text will be examined. Stam’s model of intertextual dialogism helps a better understanding of how these images relate to the original setting. While Kurzel features an authentic medieval Scottish setting, he employs new visual ways to convey the socio-cultura context of the Shakespearean Macbeth. Concerning Macbeth (2015), it could be argued that there are still similar examples of the justification of violence and war in our contemporary era. By voicing the marginalized Macbeths, Justin Kurzel relates to similar unjust conditions in the contemporary time and place.

Keywords

• socio-cultural contex
• protestanism
• dominant discourse
• subversion
• intertexual dialogism