Have a look at two of my favorite things (Shakespeare and cinema) now put together! Rotten Tomatoes has a countdown of the 30 best film adaptations of the Bard's plays. The rankings are subjective, of course, and some are odd, but do take a look!
I'll let you guess which ones I like, which I loathe, which I didn't care about, and which I own on DVD. (Two on the list were so awful in their own way that I never finished watching them. Several are so delightful that I play them often while I'm studying.)
Theater and film are such different things that any attempt to bridge the two is bound to be an interesting challenge.
I should add too that the creative adaptation of "The Taming of the Shrew" for the TV series "Moonlighting" doesn't count as cinema, really, but it's delightful all the same. Come on, Bruce Willis as Petruchio and Cybill Shepherd as Katherina!
PS: Also check out the Hamlet digression in the 1997 oddball comedy "Two Girls and a Guy."
UPDATE: The Times of London has an interesting look at the history of Shakespeare on screen.
7 comments:
Of the thirty films, which I have to admit considering the quality of some, I have seen them all. but I could only find a much smaller number that were as engrossing as any stage version. Both Henry V for the difference in interpretation, the patriotic vs. the necessary.
Both Macbeths with the Polanki version better mainly because of the opening image of Macbeth and his officers returning home and passing piles of bloody clothing and pieces of bodies along the seashore. Westside Story except for George Chakiris but definitely because of Rita Moreno. Titus Andronicus for the dance number in the first act with Titus's returning legionaires and McKellan's Richard III mostly for the updating and the Winter of Our Discontent speech whose recitation started at a state dinner and ended in a lavatory.
Ok, opinion not a lecture?
OK!
McKellan in Richard III was very good; I was intrigued by the portrayal of the queen and her brother as Americans and therefore more out of place and alienated.
Possibly because that particular Elizabeth and the rest of her family, who came to England for the goodies, were from Luxembourg and not the right sort, doncha know?
Yes, yes, I know. I just really liked how AMERICAN they were in the film. I mean, the filmmaker could have made them any other kind of non-English, couldn't he?
I love the fact that Kurosawa's adaptations were both in the top 5. I'm surprised that Polanski's Macbeth wasn't higher though. And I think 10 Things I Hate About You should have been top 20. Lion King was a stretch.
Also disappointed that Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead didn't get in. Should have gotten somewhere in 25-30.
Maybe a reference to the American practice of displaying the daughters of the wealthy in hopes of attracting a son-in-law with a title and a desperate need of money? Shorthand for another easy stereotypical American family? I mean talking about those hated Luxembourgers in 1995 might leave the audience scratching their heads and wondering what the heck that meant.
McKellen's website and discussion of the film claims that Richard had Rivers killed because the he and his sister were too ambitious and a danger to Richard.
http://www.mckellen.com/index.html
Or it could be that United Artists wanted an American in a prominent role to attract a larger American audience.
I was wondering where "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" was, too. I agree with the stretchiness of "The Lion King"!
And McKellen was a great Richard III.
"Shakespeare in Love" technically isn't the Bard, but it's such a fun film.
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