폭력의 와해를 위한 폭력영화 만들기: 줄리 테이머의 『타이터스 안드로니커스』

Abstract

Julie Taymor, in her film adaptation of Titus Andronicus(1999), has created a strikingly visual reworking of Shakespeare’s most harsh and cruel version of the Renaissance revenge tragedy, by reproducing violence as a symptom of a larger, cultural reality. Taymor juxtaposed ancient and contemporary images, costumes, settings, and musical scores to show that Shakespeare’s most brutal picture of a world is our own. And the film’s eclecticism is complemented by the juxtaposition of violence and black humor, often taking the form of ‘comic relief’, so prevalent in Shakespeare’s tradegies. The film promotes the blurring between real and illusory worlds as well. The prologue of the film begins with a young boy playing an increasingly convulsive game of toy soldiers until his inner violence comes to life and terrifies him. As the action unfolds, he is gradually absorbed into the narrative as Titus’s grandson, Young Lucius. Taymor adopts a plethora of techniques from contemporary film-making; the avant-garde aesthetics of collage, Time Slice System, nonlinear narrative, unmatched shots, fragmentation, stylistic visual templates, and film inter-textuality to match our current assumptions about the nature of textuality and reception. Especially, the film creates an outstanding effect through digital composition which Taymor refers to as the Penny Arcade Nightmares (PAN’s) that reflect the visions and flashbacks of the main characters. Taymor’s post-modern mise-en-scne placed focus on the various forms of violence to which the characters’ bodies were submitted. One of the principal traumas in the film is the emasculation of the protagonist Titus. His loss of bodily integrity becomes a synecdoche of his mutilated self, symbolic castration, political havoc and social dismantlement. The Andronici are de-sexualized or represented by their lack of sexuality as well. By contrast, Tamora Queen of the Goths and her lover Aaron’s sexualization is to be read as a sign of their moral corruption. And Tamora’s wicked sons embody a nightmarish vision of unruly youth and contemporary threat of generational difference, reverberating the media mixture of violence and sex. Taymor’s film emphasizes the image of violence- as-entertainment in our culture and its value regarding the effect it holds on inhumanity and brutal practices, and questions the discourses of our contemporary society which legitimate violence. The distinctive point of Taymor’s multilevel insight into the creative process is her own invention of the young boy through whose point of view the audience witness the actions in the film. As a framing character and witness throughout the film, Young Lucius mediates and frames everything the audience sees. As the story reaches its conclusion, however, he leaves the Colosseum, theatre of cruelty and of violence, towards the sunrise with Aaron’s baby in arms. This is for Young Lucius, a kind of rite-of-passage from innocence to experience, knowledge, compassion, and choice. By using the Colosseum as a spectacularly metatheatrical space, and by introducing the figure of the witness, with which the audience must identify, Taymor's film inspires active participation from its movie audiences. The film creates resonances with modern Fascist Italy, Fascist Germany, Bosnia, and Rwanda, so that the audience may confront the injustices and absurdities of events evocative of contemporary terrors. Taymor’s film uses Shakespeare to make a critique of violence as the sum of our heritage. Despite the possibility of hope, the finale is left open-ended, suggesting the power to change reality lies in the hands of the audience.