A critical analysis of (almost) every American film based on a
Shakespeare play. Brode (Cinema/Syracuse Univ.; The Films of Robert
De Niro, not reviewed, etc.) here assesses everything from the
acting of Marion Brando (Marc Anthony in a 1953 Julius Caesar) and
the directing of Orson Welles (Othello, 1952, and Macbeth, 1948) to
the Shakespearean content of adaptations like West Side Story
(1961). Brode organizes his narrative by individual plays (or
linked groups of plays) rather than in chronological order, which
means readers must wade through many pages about better-forgotten
productions before arriving at the flicks we know and consider good
Shakespeare. We learn that there was a 12-minute nickelodeon
version of The Taming of the Shrew, and that Mack Sennett's famous
Keystone Cops routines owe a debt to the scene with Petruchio's
servants in the first serious cinematic treatment of this play
(1908). Like the original productions at the Globe Theatre,
Shakespearean movies have always been popular, Brode points out.
The Bard's structure, involving many short scenes, is well suited
for film, and apparitions like Hamlet's ghost anticipated
Hollywood's special effects. "Old Will would have loved the
movies," beamed Welles. For most productions, Brode cites critical
reactions, including those of purists who didn't approve of filming
the plays at all. He's not shy with his own opinions either: a
typically bold assessment is that "[Sidney] Poitier cheated
himself, and us, of an important work" by not playing Othello.
Sorry, Shakespeare in Love is too recent to be discussed here. From
the Globe to the multiplex, this exhaustive study leaves no stone
unturned - and there's the rub. A sizable fraction of Brode's study
will be of interest only to film historians. (Kirkus Reviews)
Shakespeare is now enjoying perhaps his most glorious - certainly his most popular - filmic incarnation. Indeed, the Bard has been splashed across the big screen to great effect in recent adaptations of Hamlet, Henry V, Othello, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and of course in the hugely successful Shakespeare in Love. Unlike previous studies of Shakespeare's cinematic history, Shakespeare in the Movies proceeds chronologically, in the order that plays were written, allowing the reader to trace the development of Shakespeare as an author--and an auteur--and to see how the changing cultural climate of the Elizabethans flowered into film centuries later. Prolific film writer Douglas Brode provides historical background, production details, contemporary critical reactions, and his own incisive analysis, covering everything from the acting of Marlon Brando, Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton, and Gwyneth Paltrow, to the direction of Orson Welles, Kenneth Branagh, and others. Brode also considers the many films which, though not strict adaptations, contain significant Shakespearean content, such as West Side Story and Kurosawa's Ran and Throne of Blood. Nor does Brode ignore the ignoble treatment the master has sometimes received. We learn, for instance, that the 1929 version of The Taming of the Shrew (which featured the eyebrow-raising writing credit: "By William Shakespeare, with additional dialogue by Sam Taylor"), opens not so trippingly on the tongue--PETRUCHIO: "Howdy Kate." KATE: "Katherine to you, mug." For anyone wishing to cast a backward glance over the poet's film career and to better understand his current big-screen popularity, Shakespeare in the Movies is a delightful and definitive guide.
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