From Middleton and Rowley's "Changeling" to Sam Shepard's "Bodyguard"

Throughout his career, Sam Shepard demonstrated a preoccupation with national identity, myths and symbols. "The Bodyguard" was a film adaptation of Middleton and Rowley's play "Changeling". The screen adaptation is presented here as a counterhegemonic appropriation of the canonical text.

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Throughout his career, Sam Shepard demonstrated a preoccupation with national identity, myths and symbols. "The Bodyguard" was a film adaptation of the Renaissance dramatists Middleton and Rowley's play "Changeling". The screen adaptation is presented here as a counterhegemonic appropriation of the canonical text through an assertion of Shepard's American identity and a vindication of his popular roots. The adaptation critically demonstrates the tension Shepard experiences between national idea(l)s and a multicultural reality in the plot, themes and imagery of the early modern play, and also exemplifies and thematizes the postmodern fusion of high and low culture.