From Romero to Romeo—Shakespeare’s Star-Crossed Lovers Meeting Zombedy in Jonathan Levine’s Warm Bodies

Magdalena Cieślak

doi:10.18778/2083-2931.11.11

Authors

Magdalena Cieślak University of Lodz https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5738-3522

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.11.11

Keywords:

Jonathan Levine’s Warm Bodies, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo Juliet, zombedy

Abstract

Since their first screen appearances in the 1930s, zombies have enjoyed immense cinematic popularity. Defined by Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead as mindless, violent, decaying and infectious, they successfully function as ultimate fiends in horror films. Yet, even those morbid undead started evolving into more appealing, individualized and even sympathetic characters, especially when the comic potential of zombies is explored. To allow a zombie to become a romantic protagonist, however, one that can love and be loved by a human, another evolutionary step had to be taken, one fostered by a literary association.

This paper analyzes Jonathan Levine’s Warm Bodies, a 2013 film adaptation of Isaac Marion’s zombie novel inspired by William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It examines how Shakespeare’s Romeo helps transform the already evolved cinematic zombie into a romantic protagonist, and how Shakespearean love tragedy, with its rich visual cinematic legacy, can successfully locate a zombie narrative in the romantic comedy convention. Presenting the case of Shakespeare intersecting the zombie horror tradition, this paper illustrates the synergic exchanges of literary icons and the cinematic monstrous.

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Author Biography

Magdalena Cieślak, University of Lodz

Magdalena Cieślak is a Professor in the Institute of English Studies at the University of Lodz, Department of English Studies in Drama, Theatre and Film. She is also a member of an interdepartmental and interdisciplinary academic team, the International Shakespeare Studies Centre. She teaches courses in British literature, Medieval and Renaissance literature, literary theory and adaptation theory. She specializes in Renaissance drama, especially Shakespeare, and the relationships between literature and contemporary popular media in the context of cultural studies. She works in the areas of cultural materialism, feminism, gender studies and queer theory, and researches how cinema and theatre address politically and culturally subversive elements of Shakespeare’s plays. She has recently published Screening Gender in Shakespeare’s Comedies. Film and Television Adaptations in the Twenty-First Century (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019).

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