Shakespeare on Film
(Film & Media 113, English 160)
Since 1899, cinema has produced an almost infinite variety of Shakespeare adaptations. Film-makers from all
over the world have found ingenious ways to bring Shakespeare's tragedies, comedies, Roman and history plays
to the screen. More than 500 such productions have emerged, in two broad categories: ‘original-text films’
using Shakespeare’s language, such as George Cukor's Romeo and Juliet and Laurence Olivier's Henry V and
Hamlet, and ‘genre adaptations’, which use the plays' plots and characters as a template but replace
Shakespeare's language with contemporary dialogue to give audiences Westerns, musicals, high-school
comedies (Ten Things I Hate About You and She's the Man) and gangster thrillers.
This course involves close analysis and discussion of Shakespeare's texts in comparison with contemporary
stage productions and a wide range of original-text films and genre adaptations.
Our goal will be to illuminate the playwright's themes, language and stagecraft, the possibilities of stage-toscreen adaptation and the cultural and commercial factors that have influenced trends in Shakespearean film
production in the US, UK and the rest of the world.
Two introductory lectures will address fundamental questions that must be answered by all Shakespearean filmmakers, and summarize the history of Shakespeare on screen, from the silent era to the present, highlighting key
figures such as Olivier, Orson Welles, Franco Zeffirelli and Kenneth Branagh.
Through subsequent lectures, seminar discussion and individual essay work, the core of the course will be the
assessment of stage and screen presentations of two set texts: King Lear and The Tempest. This work will
complement visits to new productions of King Lear at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in Stratfordupon-Avon and The Tempest, directed by Sam Mendes, at The Old Vic, London. Students will be asked to
compare and contrast these stagings with screen versions of the plays, especially the King Lear films of Brook,
Kozintsev and Kurosawa and the Tempest films of Jarman, Greenaway and Wilcox [see Set Texts viewing list,
below]. Four of these films will be screened in full, on weekday evenings.
The set texts and other Shakespeare plays will be explored mainly through scene analysis, using printed text
extracts and film clips. Students' advance knowledge of the plays will be essential for the set texts and
preferable for the plays listed below in Secondary Reading. Throughout, students will be encouraged to make
oral contributions to lectures and, especially, seminars, and to utilize their knowledge of non-Shakespearean
theatre, films and film-making.
Topics will include:
- "Show, Don't Tell": how and why do film-makers depict what Shakespeare only describes?
"Soliloquies on Film": how do film-makers deal with perhaps the most theatrical element of Shakespeare's
stagecraft?
"Genre Adaptation": what do we learn about the plays, and modern film-making conventions, when
Shakespeare is reinvented in genre movies such as Joe Macbeth, O, Ten Things I Hate About You and She's the
Man?
"Shakespeare as Movie DNA": how has Shakespeare left his mark on films that appear at first glance to have
no connection to his plays?
Instructor: Daniel Rosenthal
A Pembroke graduate, and former Associate Scholar of the college, Daniel Rosenthal is an Associate Tutor for
the British Film Institute. He is the author of Shakespeare on Screen (Hamlyn, London, 2000) and 100
Shakespeare Films (BFI Publishing, London, 2007) and has edited Methuen Student Editions of Oleanna by
David Mamet and Closer by Patrick Marber. He is currently writing The National Theatre Story for Oberon
Books.
Set Texts
These texts should be read before arrival.
King Lear
The Tempest
It would also be beneficial to have watched on DVD as many as possible of these films, which will all be used
in class:
King Lear (UK, 1971) Dir: Peter Brook
King Lear (USSR, 1971) Dir: Grigori Kozintsev
Ran (Japan, 1985) Dir: Akira Kurosawa (based on King Lear)
A Thousand Acres (US, 1997) Dir: Jocelyn Moorhouse (based on King Lear)
My Kingdom (UK, 2001) Dir: Don Boyd (based on King Lear)
The Tempest (UK, 1979) Dir: Derek Jarman
Prospero’s Books (UK, 1990) Dir: Peter Greenaway
Forbidden Planet (US, 1956) Dir: Fred McCleod Wilcox (based on The Tempest)
Tempest (US, 1982) Dir: Paul Mazursky (based on The Tempest)
Secondary Reading
Plays
In addition to the set texts, the following plays will be discussed, and students will benefit from having read
some or all of them before arrival:
Hamlet
Henry V
Julius Caesar
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
The Taming of the Shrew
History & Criticism
All of the films covered in the course are analyzed in 100 Shakespeare Films by Daniel Rosenthal (BFI
Publishing, 2007; distributed in the US by Palgrave Macmillan).
Other relevant titles:
Boose, Lynda and Burt, Richard (eds.) – Shakespeare the Movie II: Popularizing the Plays on Film, TV, Video and
DVD (Routledge, London, 2003)
Brode, Douglas – Shakespeare in the Movies: From the Silent Era to Today (Berkely Blvd. Books, New York,
2001)
Crowl, Samuel – Shakespeare at the Cineplex (Ohio University Press, Athens, 2003; revised 2005); The Films of
Kenneth Branagh (Praeger, Westport, 2006)
Davies, Anthony and Wells, Stanley (eds.) – Shakespeare and the Moving Image (Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1994)
French, Emma – Selling Shakespeare to Hollywood (University of Hertfordshire Press, Hatfield, 2006)
Henderson, Diana (ed.) – A Concise Companion to Shakespeare on Screen (Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2005)
Jackson, Russell (ed.) – The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film (Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2000)
Jorgens, Jack – Shakespeare on Film (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1977)
Manvell, Roger – Shakespeare and the Film (A. S. Barnes, South Brunswick, 1979)
Richie, Donald – The Films of Akira Kurosawa (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1996)
Rosenbaum, Jonathan (ed.) – Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich: This Is Orson Welles (Harper Collins, London,
1993)
Rothwell, Kenneth S. and Melzer, Annabelle Henkin (eds.) Shakespeare on Screen: An International Filmography
and Videography (Neal-Schuman, New York, 1990)
Rothwell, Kenneth S. – A History of Shakespeare on Screen: A Century of Film and Television (Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1999; revised 2004)
Secondary Viewing
(All titles should be available on VHS and/or DVD)
Original-Text Adaptations
Hamlet (UK, 1948) Dir: Laurence Olivier
Hamlet (UK/US, 1990) Dir: Franco Zeffirelli
Hamlet (UK/US, 1996) Dir: Kenneth Branagh
Hamlet (US, 2000) Dir: Michael Almereyda
Henry V (UK, 1944) Dir: Laurence Olivier
Henry V (UK, 1989) Dir: Kenneth Branagh
Julius Caesar (US, 1953) Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Macbeth (US, 1948) Dir: Orson Welles
Macbeth (UK/US, 1971) Dir: Roman Polanski
Macbeth (Australia, 2006) Dir: Geoffrey Wright.
Othello (Morocco, 1952) Dir: Orson Welles
Othello (UK/US, 1996) Oliver Parker
Romeo and Juliet (US/UK, 1968) Franco Zeffirelli
William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (US, 1996) Baz Luhrmann
Genre Adaptations
West Side Story (US, 1961) Dirs: Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins (based on Romeo and Juliet)
She's the Man (US, 2006) Dir: Andy Fickman (based on Twelfth Night)
Maqbool (India, 2003) Dir: Vishal Bhardwaj [based on Macbeth]
Throne of Blood (Japan, 1957) Dir: Akira Kurosawa (based on Macbeth)
The Bad Sleep Well (Japan, 1960) Dir: Akira Kurosawa (based on Hamlet)
10 Things I Hate About You (US, 1999) Dir: Gil Unger (based on Taming of the Shrew)
//ends