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The (Un)Represented Fragmentation of the Body in Tennessee Williams's "Desire and the Black Masseur" and Suddenly Last Summer

1998; University of Toronto Press; Volume: 41; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3138/md.41.3.347

1712-5286

Annette Saddik,

Theater, Performance, and Music History

When the film version of Suddenly Last Summer premiered in 1959 starring Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, Tennessee Williams was highly critical of the way in which it handled the cannibalism motif. He objected to the film precisely because the director, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, chose to represent the act of mutilation on the screen "realistically," whereas Williams felt that it must not become visible but function only as the central metaphor of the film. Williams has repeatedly described Suddenly Last Summer as an "allegory," claiming that "[i]t was about how people devour each other in an allegorical sense."