The second volume in the re-launched series Shakespeare on Screen is devoted to The Tempest and Shakespeare's late romances, offering up-to-date coverage of recent screen versions as well as new critical reviews of older, canonical films. An international cast of authors explores not only productions from the USA and the UK, but also translations, adaptations and appropriations from Poland, Italy and France. Spanning a wide chronological range, from the first cinematic interpretation of Cymbeline in 1913 to The Royal Ballet's live broadcast of The Winter's Tale in 2014, the volume provides an extensive treatment of the plays' resonance for contemporary audiences. Supported by a film-bibliography, numerous illustrations and free online resources, the book will be an invaluable resource for students, scholars and teachers of film studies and Shakespeare studies.
From Oscar-winning British classics to Hollywood musicals and Westerns, from Soviet epics to Bollywood thrillers, Shakespeare has inspired an almost infinite variety of films. Directors as diverse as Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Franco Zeffirelli, Kenneth Branagh, Baz Luhrmann and Julie Taymor have transferred Shakespeare's plays from stage to screen with unforgettable results. Spanning a century of cinema, from a silent short of 'The Tempest' (1907) to Kenneth Branagh's 'As You Like It' (2006), Daniel Rosenthal's up-to-date selection takes in the most important, inventive and unusual Shakespeare films ever made. Half are British and American productions that retain Shakespeare's language, including key works such as Olivier's 'Henry V' and 'Hamlet', Welles' 'Othello' and 'Chimes at Midnight', Branagh's 'Henry V' and 'Hamlet', Luhrmann's 'Romeo + Juliet' and Taymor's 'Titus'. Alongside these original-text films are more than 30 genre adaptations: titles that aim for a wider audience by using modernized dialogue and settings and customizing Shakespeare's plots and characters, transforming 'Macbeth' into a pistol-packing gangster ('Joe Macbeth' and 'Maqbool') or reimagining 'Othello' as a jazz musician ('All Night Long'). There are Shakesepeare-based Westerns ('Broken Lance', 'King of Texas'), musicals ('West Side Story', 'Kiss Me Kate'), high-school comedies ('10 Things I Hate About You', 'She's the Man'), even a sci-fi adventure ('Forbidden Planet'). There are also films dominated by the performance of a Shakespearean play ('In the Bleak Midwinter', 'Shakespeare in Love'). Rosenthal emphasises the global nature of Shakespearean cinema, with entries on more than 20 foreign-language titles, including Kurosawa's 'Throne of Blood and Ran', Grigori Kozintsev's 'Russian Hamlet' and 'King Lear', and little-known features from as far afield as 'Madagascar' and 'Venezuela', some never released in Britain or the US. He considers the films' production and box-office history and examines the film-makers' key interpretive decisions in comparison to their Shakespearean sources, focusing on cinematography, landscape, music, performance, production design, textual alterations and omissions. As cinema plays an increasingly important role in the study of Shakespeare at schools and universities, this is a wide-ranging, entertaining and accessible guide for Shakespeare teachers, students and enthusiasts.
This book explores Shakespeare films as interpretations of Shakespeare's plays as well as interpreting the place of Shakespeare on screen within the classroom and within the English curriculum. Shakespeare on screen is evaluated both in relation to the play texts and in relation to the realms of popular film culture. The book focuses on how Shakespeare is manipulated in film and television through the representation of violence, gender, sexuality, race and nationalism. Cartmell discusses a wide range of films, including Orson Welles' Othello (1952), Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books (1991), Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1996) and John Madden's Shakespeare in Love (1998).
The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Screen provides a lively guide to film and television productions adapted from Shakespeare's plays. Offering an essential resource for students of Shakespeare, the companion considers topics such as the early history of Shakespeare films, the development of 'live' broadcasts from theatre to cinema, the influence of promotion and marketing, and the range of versions available in 'world cinema'. Chapters on the contexts, genres and critical issues of Shakespeare on screen offer a diverse range of close analyses, from 'Classical Hollywood' films to the BBC's Hollow Crown series. The companion also features sections on the work of individual directors Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Franco Zeffirelli, Kenneth Branagh, and Vishal Bhardwaj, and is supplemented by a guide to further reading and a filmography.
This book explores Shakespeare films as interpretations of Shakespeare's plays as well as interpreting the place of Shakespeare on screen within the classroom and within the English curriculum. Shakespeare on screen is evaluated both in relation to the play texts and in relation to the realms of popular film culture. The book focuses on how Shakespeare is manipulated in film and television through the representation of violence, gender, sexuality, race and nationalism. Cartmell discusses a wide range of films, including Orson Welles' Othello (1952), Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books (1991), Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1996) and John Madden's Shakespeare in Love (1998).
