THE SEEN AS OBSCENE: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN ROBERT ALTMAN’S FILM ‘SHORT CUTS’

Resumo

This study aims at analyzing Robert Altman’s film Short Cuts (1993), the equivocal and disputed adaptation of nine short stories and a narrative poem by American author Raymond Carver. The investigation, however, centers specifically on Altman’s revisitation of Carver’s short story “So Much Water So Close to Home” (1981). The study conducted here examines negative responses to the intermedial transposition of the narrative concerning violence against women. Grounds are provided to support the contention that the gender issues are due to the different styles of both Carver and Altman, the change in the mode of engagement (cf. HUTCHEON, 2006, p. 22-27) on the part of the audience and a certain “anti-corporeality” (STAM, 2005) reaction to graphic scenes involving gender-based violence. In order to substantiate such concepts, it is argued that although Short Cuts changes portions of the adapted text, it re-accentuates its psychological crises and gender antagonisms by means of a cinematic construction of visually shocking images and shifting perspectives.