Sensual Polyphony of Wilde, Shaw, Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare in Woody Allen’s Films

Kamila Kalista

doi:10.18290/rkult24151.2

Published : 2024-03-29

Vol. 15 No. 1 (2024)

Sensual Polyphony of Wilde, Shaw, Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare in Woody Allen’s Films

Kamila Kalista

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0453-0124

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rkult24151.2

Abstract

Woody Allen’s comedies are like a perpetual carnival, filled with festivity and laughter—a time when most senses are awoken, and participants celebrate freedom and equality. His dramas are marked by a profanation of rules which are generally sacred or at least widely respected.

The author of the article analyzes several of Woody Allen’s films, referring to Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory on polyphony and his concept of the carnivalesque. Allen’s films are upside down worlds of such classics as The Picture of Dorian Gray, Pygmalion, Crime and Punishment, Othello and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The director conducts a constant dialog with other artists, writers, philosophers and even God. He agrees or polemizes with them on subjects concerning a whole range of emotions and senses mostly in a humorous or ironic way, copying different styles to create a pastiche, a parody, or his own version of drama.

Keywords:

carnival, literature, senses, film, dialog

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

References

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Kamila Kalista

kamilakalista@yahoo.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0453-0124

Affiliation:

University of Humanities and Economics in Lodz Poland

Bio Statement (e.g., department and rank)

Information about the Author: Kamila Kalista, PhD, is ‎a lecturer of Literature and Film in the Department of English Studies, University of Humanities and Economics in Lodz. She graduated from English Studies and Political Science, focusing on discourse and ‎genre of advertisements and propaganda. She completed her PhD thesis exploring food ‎and death motifs in film. She is the author of texts on food and drink as symbols in ‎historical perspectives, food and death in cultures, and food film. She is mainly interested in ‎politics, culture theories, literature in film, and food studies.