Echoes of Shakespeare: Julius Caesar and House of Cards - the Final Cut by Dobbs and BBC

Brunilda Tempel Reichmann

doi:10.18309/anp.v1i50.1324

Abstract

Em 2017, publicamos um artigo sobre o diálogo que se estabelece entre a trilogia House of Cards, de Michael Dobbs, as séries da BBC e da Netflix e as peças de Shakespeare – Ricardo III, Macbeth e Otelo. Este texto dá continuidade à primeira publicação e versa sobre o último volume da trilogia de Dobbs, The Final Cut [O último ato], e a Temporada 3 da BBC, para demonstrar como Júlio César, de Shakespeare, foi ressignificado nas duas produções, assunto até então não explorado. Voltamos a nossa atenção, portanto, apenas para esse último romance de Dobbs e sua adaptação na última temporada da série da BBC, enfatizando o protagonismo, a volubilidade do povo e a retórica em discursos proferidos por personagens de Shakespeare e de Dobbs. Procuramos demonstrar também como essa temporada da série, apesar de reproduzir um primeiro-ministro fragilizado pela idade e perseguido por lembranças involuntárias de crimes cometidos no passado, como no romance, ameniza a crueldade e intensifica problemas emocionais, tornando os acontecimentos mais palatáveis e o protagonista mais humano ao espectador da série.

Highlights

Shakespearean texts are dense hypertexts that dialogue with multiple sources and with the complex web of intertexts accumulated throughout the ages
In that article, that the motivation that leads Iago, in Othello, to rebel against the general, is similar to the motivations that lead the protagonists of the trilogy and series to rebel against their superiors, a triggering issue in the narratives
Julius Caesar appears in the novel The Final Cut and the BBC series as representation and reference, as Francis Urquart’s bedside text and last reading, as a rhetorical reproduction of Mark Antony’s speech in Urquart’s speech, delivered to destroy his opponent, the candidate Thomas Makepeace who, until that moment, was the only politician who confronted and opposed the prime minister and was about to win the election

Summary

Introduction

Shakespearean texts are dense hypertexts that dialogue with multiple sources and with the complex web of intertexts accumulated throughout the ages. If we lose that information, it is Shakespeare’s echoes that awakens the viewer to possible resignification of earlier texts, making clear the Shakespearean palimpsestic marks in the series These marks, become almost imperceptible in the course of the North-American series (73 episodes), by its deep and extensive immersion in the political-cultural context of the United States and by its gradual and inevitable departure of the series from Michael Dobbs’ trilogy (House of Cards, To Play the King and The Final Cut) and from the BBC series The House of Cards Trilogy (12 episodes). Julius Caesar appears in the novel The Final Cut and the BBC series as representation and reference, as Francis Urquart’s bedside text and last reading, as a rhetorical reproduction of Mark Antony’s speech (to turn the Roman people against Brutus) in Urquart’s speech, delivered to destroy his opponent, the candidate Thomas Makepeace who, until that moment, was the only politician who confronted and opposed the prime minister and was about to win the election

The Play within the Novel

Protagonism in Julius Caesar and The Final Cut

Final Remarks