Shakespeare in Film

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

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[quote=Holden Pike]And the best re-working of Shakespeare has to be Kurosawa's RAN (1985), which cleverly transplants Lear to Fuedal Japan.QUOTE]

ive said before and ill say it again RAN is the best

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did you know that teflon comes from spiders feet?

I can't believe I've never seen Ran. Anyway, I agree with much that's previously been mentioned, with a couple of additions:

Scotland, PA - I have four words for you: Chris Walken as MacDuff. With that having been said, this was a neat take on MacBeth -- instead of a kingdom, set it in a small-town restaurant (if you've ever lived in a small town, you know that the businessmen there are pretty much like nobility). And the buried frustrations, they do run deep. The "king's" murder is especially memorable.

And, Dr. Lamb, this one's for you. In one of my Shakespeare classes, the prof was out for a week, and another prof, Dr. Lamb, covered for him. We'd been reading MacBeth, and she brought us in a movie adaptation -- a gangster flick from the 50s called Joe MacBeth. It was all gangster, all the time; the other characters called him "Joe Mac," and Banquo was even "Banky." Which I thought was cute. Sue me.

What was really interesting about this whole thing were the connections between the settings -- taking a play about Scotland's ancient warrior culture and setting it in America's last true warrior culture. We had a kick-ass class discussion about this, and I've never forgotten that movie. I'd like to find it somewhere that doesn't involve me paying money to buy it online.

And I just realized that both these movies were MacBeth adaptations. Huh.

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You were a demon and a lawyer? Wow. Insert joke here."

There's another take on this same idea, and for me done much more effectively. It's called Men of Respect (1991 - William Reilly), starring John Turturro and his real-life wife Katherine Borowitz as the MacBeth and wife counterparts, Dennis Farina as the Banquo character (also called "Banky" here), Peter Boyle as MacDuff, and Rod Steiger as the King/Don. Stanley Tucci, Vincent Pastore, Nick Turturro, and Steven Wright are also in the cast. Good little indie flick, check it out sometime.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

I really enjoyed Shakespeare In Love if that counts...

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
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yeah, Shakespeare in Love can count, but Gwyneth shouldn't have won the oscar.
Anything with Kenneth Branagh is good, my favourite is Othello (with Laurence Fishbourne), Iago is the best bad-guy, so cool.

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CHOOSE LIFE

Throne of Blood is by far the best film adaptation of the Bard, it retains the theatrical element (albeit in the form of Noh drama) to a degree that no other screen Shakespeare does without sacrificing cinematic potential.

I like William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (the Baz Luhrmann version), also Ran, as has been mentioned.

It would be interesting to see which Shakepeare plays Kenneth Branagh hasn't tried his hand at...my mum has a video of his 1940s style musical version of Love's Labours Lost, which is...different!

One film which I don't think has been mentioned so far is My Own Private Idaho, which is partly based on - or inspired by - Henry IV.

I think that the books should definitely be mandatory for adolescents to read, but I think that the silver screen does wonderful things with them.

Hooray West Side Story!

I actually loved Ethan Hawke's Hamlet and wrote a paper on it. I thought it was an interesting way to update and modernize Hamlet, which I love!

Kurosawa's Ran

Watch it immediately.

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What is your favorite Shakespeare adaptation onto film?

Othello, Mel Gibson's Hamlet, Branagh's Henry IV.

I actually developed my first crush on an adult male via Henry IV (at age 12) and Branagh's little green tights. Then of course he betrayed Emma Thompson and I wished the pox on him.

Have any of you absolutely hated a paticular adaptation?

Branagh's Hamlet (pompous, overwrought, so blinding it washed out the text), and Much Ado About Nothing (I adore Emma Thompson and a few others but some of the cast was a joke), and Midsummer Night's Dream (most of the cast was preposterously awful for this vehicle and this text).


The 1968 film version of 'Romeo and Juliet' is my favorite for THAT play.

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I like the Welles adaptations best: Macbeth, The Chimes at Midnight, and especially Othello.

After that comes Prospero's Books, by Peter Greenaway, and then the Kurosawa adaptations.

The only Branagh film I've seen is In the Bleak Midwinter, which I like a lot. Guess I should check out his Hamlet then.

Yay, someone else who found that version laughable in the wrong way

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Kurosawa's Throne of Blood is probably the best Macbeth adaptation out there, with Orson Welles' coming a close second.

I like an occasional dose of The Bard every now and again, sure. To answer one of the original questions, no, of course I don't think Shakespeare's plays should be kept off the silver screen. There have been countless classic films that owe their existence to his work, whether they be painfully faithful recreations or creative re-workings. I definitely have an odd affinity for these Shakespeare-redux dealies like 10 Things I Hate About You, Romeo + Juliet and O. They're pretty goofy at times, but, for the most part, they're entertaining.

My all time favorite performances in a Shakespeare flick are Laurence Fishburne in Branagh's Othello and Francesca Annis in Polanski's Macbeth. That version of Macbeth is probably the best Shakespeare adaptation that I've seen, but I'm also a big fan of Scotland, PA. Scotland, PA is another spin on Macbeth and it is a lot of fun. It's offbeat, clever and Maura Tierney and Chris Walken are just dynamite.

I like a lot of the films mentioned here, although I sorta abhor Luhrmann's take on Romeo and Juliet.

My favorite Shakespearean film, by far, is Branagh's Henry V. Watching this film, I'm reminded that Shakespeare should be seen and not read. Just listening to him give the St. Crispin's Day Speech is enough to make anyone realize the power of Shakespeare's words.

I think this is a brilliant film from beginning to end because Branagh is able to give us the ambiguity of the play -- is it about the glories of war or about how destructive it is? Is Henry still a member of his "band of brothers," or is he, as the triumphant King sending his brothers to battle, truly no longer the "Harry" he once was? (We know the answer.) The song of glory over the bloody battlefield is probably the best statement about war I've ever seen.

What's so brilliant is that he captures all that in a 4 minute tracking shot:



I was stunned the first time I saw this. I still get chills. It seems to me that if film can serve as a visual interpretation without words needed, then this is the perfect example. Further, this could never have been done on the stage. It's really quite amazing how this 4-minute shot can illicit such varying interpretations and emotional reactions.

BTW, for anyone interested, here is a really good discussion of the scene: http://web.syr.edu/~ebedgert/pd/non-nobis.html

And if you didn't know, the first soldier singing is the composer, Doyle, and Branagh is carrying Christian Bale.