Quand le théâtre s’inspire du cinéma : Jean Cocteau, Sergueï Eisenstein et Tennessee Williams

Abstract

Tennessee Williams’s lifelong fascination with cinema left marks on his theatre. The use of projections in The Glass Menagerie and the role played by music in many of his plays are cases in point. Yet, the influence of cinema on Williams’s writing goes far beyond the mere transposition of new technological devices onto the stage. For cinema brought about new ways of representing the world, thus providing the playwright with the means of escaping from the realist tradition and creating the “new, plastic theatre” he advocated as early as 1944. His autobiographical essays are peppered with references to famous filmmakers who helped him shape his language for the stage. The examination of his most famous play – A Streetcar Named Desire – reveals the influence of Cocteau and Eisenstein’s films and theories, giving us a new insight into Williams’s creative process.

Keywords

• Theatre
• cinema
• plastic work
• Gesamtkunstwerk
• montage theory
• synesthesia