One actually welcome side-effect of the existence of the conceptually odious film Anonymous (whose central premise is very nicely put paid to in a brief, cogent piece by Jonathan Jones in his blog at the Guardian today) is that it puts some mainstream media focus on Shakespeare and his work. And thus, I was afforded the opportunity by MSN Movies to weigh in on both the ten best and ten worst film adaptations of Shakespeare as I saw them. Amusingly enough, a fellow named Branagh figures prominently on BOTH lists, while our Mr. Welles, seen far left, appears on only one. Hope you’re able to get through the slide shows (change browsers if you have a problem, I find!) and when you do, feel free to start an argument here. (I know at least one person who I think is going to take some umbrage at my tenth-worst choice, even though I think I make a case.)
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Zeffirelli edged out Polanski?
That was the toughest call, but, yeah.
I like the Aussie Macbeth better than the Welles or Polanski renditions. It has a sense of fun, though not everything works.
A LOT of people really like the Australian “Macbeth;” for myself, it really grated. I see the Loncraine/MacKellan “Richard III” has its defenders, and that I just don’t get at all…
Great as that final death in THRONE OF BLOOD is, the best moment is the night of the poisoning. It helps that Shakespeare provided such solid dramaturgy for it—Macbeth and Lady M in the single bedroom, each exit and entrance signifying another terrible deed. But the visual balance and stillness Kurosawa uses in shooting it, and that incredibly shot of Lady M gliding out of the darkness with the poison, makes it as horrifying as the eternally-spinning ghost in the woods.
And geez, I don’t know what that “lot of film buffs” are talking about with regard to Peter Brook’s incredible 1971 film of King Lear. It does indeed apply the moderns to Lear, but that’s only because they came up with some of the best cinematic solutions to the problems of filming Lear (problems Kurosawa simply avoided by changing the text—a valid option, but not nearly as impressive). Specifically, the “suicide” of Gloucester, which Brook has written about quite insightfully: It’s a moment that has to be simultaneously on a mountaintop, on a beach, and on a stage, the kind of multivalent staging that theater does effortlessly but film can’t quite pull of, at least, couldn’t until Brook did. The whole movie grabs what excited the modernists about Lear—the way it feels less like a drama and more like some kind of horrible ritual slaughter—in a way no other Shakespeare film did (with the exception of Almareyda’s interesting experiment). And it’s not *that* hard to see—there’s a perfectly good Region 2 DVD of it.
I personally would have included one of Grigori Kozintsev’s adaptations – preferably his version of “King Lear” – but I otherwise think the “best adaptations” list is pretty much spot-on (I haven’t seen enough of the “worst” to really have an opinion about it, other than to say that the few that I have seen do deserve to be there.)
Polanski’s rendition of “The Scottish Play” is wildly underrated. Franco Zefferelli is a tedious hack with a taste for codpieces and a very occasional attack of competence (eg. “Tea With Mussolini” where he was obviously inspired by the presence of Cher.) History will mark him as Visconti’s least-interesting boyfriend – and little more.
Welles’ Shakespeare films are all excellent, especially “Chimes at Midnight.” Gus’ semi-remake “My Own Private Idaho” ain’t bad either.
And speakign of queer Shakespeare Derek Jarman’s “The Angelic Conversation” (with Judi Dench reading the sonnets) and “The Tempest” are first rate
Yeah, was hoping Polanski’s “Macbeth” would be on there
What was kind of gratifying to me in the course of researching this was concluding that there’s actually a lot more good Shakespeare on film than bad, and that to come up with a ten-worst list I had to kind of stretch the definition to include something that wasn’t necessarily bad per se but could be argued to be near-fatally dated. No overall Zefferelli fan myself (although I really do dig his staging of “Don Giovanni,” gotta say), I still insist that his “R&J” was something of a significant breakthrough in the genre, and while I agree with the panelists here that the Polanski “Macbeth” is both very good and underrated, I kinda felt I had to award the Zefferelli on account of zeitgeist pertinence and stuff.
1st time commenter here -
am I a complete internet dope? How am I missing the Polanski and Zeffirelli entries? Which BTW I both rather like, altho’ Zeff’s R&J is kinda po’ faced in its faithfulness. I 2nd the like for Jarman’s TEMPEST – the rock n roll adolescent in me was reminded of Jimmy Page by Prospero’s overall look (I know, Byron’s stylistic DNA is in there too).
Can’t help but proclaim my fondness for the Luhrmann and the Loncraine. I remember seeing the trailer for RICHARD III and my wife and I just losing our shit – “What the hell was that?! That looks so cool!” It seemed to come out of nowhere and on finally watching it we were both thoroughly satisfied. The military history geek in me was also amused to think that Richard was finally defeated by a lack of air power – the kindly uncle who goes against him at the last minute is wearing an RAF uniform.
And for sheer bloody-minded weirdness there’s Peter Greenaway’s PROSPERO’S BOOKS…
Yes, this is a great list, although I also have a soft spot for “Prospero’s Books” and Aki Kaurismaki’s “Hamlet Goes Business”…
Oh, THERE“S the Zeffirelli. I am a moron.
Also, too – I remember seeing THRONE OF BLOOD for the first time and the print’s english title said “The Legend (Story?)of Cobweb Castle”. Does anyone else remember this? Or did I dream it?
David Hockney sat next to me at the press screening of “Prospero’s Boos.” After about ten minutes he heaved a sigh and walked out. I dutifully sat through it all – but he had the right idea.
Yes, I happen to love Polanski’s MACBETH, as well, not least because when MacBeth gets decapitated, the final act of his body, in the milisecond before it shuts down, is to REACH OUT AND TRY TO CATCH THE HEAD! You won’t see that just anywhere.
I feel obliged to speak up on behalf of THE KING IS ALIVE, which remains a big & resonant fave.
Jaime, the Japanese title of THRONE OF BLOOD is SPIDER’S WEB CASTLE, so it is possible you saw it under that title.
Another fan of the Loncraine RICHARD III—much prefer its kinetic nastiness to Olivier’s respectable tedium. I loved MacKellan’s concept of Richard as less a general than an actor—not only did it make his asides to the audience a delight (especially the tendency to lean into frame at weird angles), it also provides the simplest possible explanation for Richard’s villainy, which is that he does it because it’s really, really fun. And I think the unfussy approach to the language really works—treating it as dialogue rather than poetry gives it room to breathe. And geez, I’ll take Luhrmann’s authentically teenage kicks over Zefferelli’s pompous gauziness any day, but that may be as generational as a preference for the Z.
@ Jamie: I recently saw THRONE at Film Forum, and I believe the “Legend of Spider Web Castle” was there.
I’ll add my weight to the Polanski bandwagon.
Also, there is one television production that I thought was fantastic, and that is the 1973 “Merchant of Venice” with Olivier, Joan Plowright, and Jeremy Brett. I saw it on DVD some years back, and, while low budget, I felt the performances were spot on (as you might imagine with that cast).
I also think I would put Peter Brook’s 1971 “King Lear”, with Paul Scofield in the lead, above some the entries in this top ten. Dark, cold, and bracing.
I’ll also speak up for the Loncraine Richard III and the Brooks Lear. I’ve never seen any of the Russian Shakespeares. Did they nearly make it. By the Way Robin Williams plays Osric, not a gravedigger, in the Branagh Hamlet.
No mention by anyone, positive or negative, of Godard’s bizarrely-cast King Lear? Woody Allen, Molly Ringwald, Burgess Meredith, Normal Mailer, etc?
The Zeffirelli “Romeo and Juliet” was revolutionary in its time, especially the stage version. Shakespeare staging was never the same. The movie is by all accounts considerably weaker and Whiting and Hussey are hopelessly inadequate (Zeffirelli’s stage R&J, John Stride and Judi Dench, were young but not so young that they couldn’t cope with the verse and the higher emotions.) But as Glenn says it’s historically significant.
I would substitute the Polanski Macbeth for Throne of Blood or the Welles version. I miss the poetry – and despite the moments of astonishing visual beauty the whole thing is mostly over the top.
I liked Glenn’s inclusion of the Olivier “Hamlet” in the top ten – it hasn’t always gotten the respect it deserves, although I don’t like having the big speeches in voiceover. I wouldn’t say Branagh’s Henry V is really superior to Olivier’s – it’s different, and a better fit for modern viewers, but they both have their strengths and weaknesses.
I would have included in the top ten the Kozintsev Hamlet with Innokenti Smoktunovsky. The ten worst would have included another Hamlet, the Nicol Williamson version. Good God.
Adding that one of the great might-have-beens of Shakespeare movie history is the Olivier “Macbeth” that never got made, because Korda died and Olivier couldn’t find another backer. This was reportedly the best Macbeth in anyone’s memory, and the failure was a severe blow to Olivier, who really, really wanted to make that film.
I would hardly call any film that helped fuel the Johnny Rotten persona a piece of “respectable tedium,” but it takes all kinds…in any event, I’ll still insist that the Loncraine is one ostentatious mess, kinetic or not.
I’m not crazy about Brook as a filmmaker. I WISH I liked his stuff better. His vital organs are clearly in the right place, and he gets great casts; but there’s alway something about his film work that strikes me as second hand. I KNOW Ron Rosenbaum is crazy about the Brook/Scofield “Lear,” and I agree that the performance itself is remarkable, but, but…
I’m not even gonna bother rolling my eyes at the “generational preference” supposition. I can agree that Luhrmann’s “R+J” conveyed “teenage kicks.” My problem is that that’s about ALL he conveyed. You know, in THEORY, John Leguizamo as Tybalt is a DYNAMITE idea. In practice, the film is sound and fury and over-overplaying. The Zefferelli to me struck an engaging balance between textual fidelity and eye candy. I think it’s his best film in a walk.
The Godard “Lear” was CONCEIVED as an adaptation of the play, and instead wound up a science-fiction story about a descendant of William Shakespeare searching for evidence of the Bard’s work after a post Chernoobyl apocalypse and finding real-life (sort of) figures who speak as Lear and his daughter did. Also Woody Allen editing film with sewing needles and reciting a “Lear” monologue. A great film, but not really something you want to recommend to people who are likely looking for something like one of the plays made into a movie.
Also: Yeah, that Kozintsev “Hamlet” is pretty nuts. But to give you an idea of just how limiting the restriction of ten for the best list was, I didn’t even get to put the Welles “Macbeth,” which I adore, on there.
- the film is sound and fury and over-overplaying -
Heh – you’ve got a certain facet of my taste to a T. I sometimes like stuff that’s over-heated. I mean, I listen to and dig Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf’s BAT OUT HELL un-ironically. The WHOLE album…
‘Prospero’s Books’ is the only Greenaway with repeat value for me (not coincidentally his final collaboration with Michael Nyman before their mutually deleterious Hitchcock-Herrmann-esque split, I believe).
Though I’m also fond of the Brooks Lear, it’s admittedly a reductive rendering of the play. Aside from that, I very much agree with both lists, and thank you for keeping in Olivier–I’m still recovering from Dave Kehr’s scorched earth NYT denunciation of him as a sub-Ed Wood hack. Doubly tough reading since I quite like Kehr’s work. Jonathan Rosenbaum had a point when he said Olivier’s Shakespeare films tended to get overrated at their time of release while Welles’s were underrated, but I’d like to think there’s room for both in the best-of tent.
Does “The Bad Sleep Well” count?
Mark me down as one who vastly prefers Zeferrelli’s R&J to Luhrmann’s– the film is gorgeous, sexy, compelling, earthy, and immediate. The costuming, set design, and cinematography are sumptuous joys. And while I’ll readily admit the two leads aren’t great, Hussey sure is purdy. IIRC, hers are the first breasts I had ever seen on screen, and they were gorgeous. I mean this in the least perverted way possible, without denying the film’s definite erotic charge for the eleven-year-old me.
Luhrmann’s is obnoxious and overbearing– like every one of his tiresome, tone-deaf, eye-assaulting films.
The Brook-Scofield Lear is plain bad. Whatever was great in the stage production got lost in translation, a misfortune for Scofield especially since his theater performance was the stuff of legend and virtually none of it got onscreen.
I’m very pleased to see that you included both Luhrman’s “Romeo + Juliet” and Nelson’s “O” in your Worst Of list. The former is a superficial, stupid mess and the latter is a desperate, laughably bad adaptation.
If I were to make my own Best Of list for Shakespeare adaptations, I’d undoubtedly include the “Hamlet” version with Ethan Hawke. That version from 2000 veers very close to Luhrman and Nelson territory because the film takes place in the present and has Julia Stiles, but the supporting performances by MacLachlan, Murray, and Shepard are strong enough to carry the film in my opinion.
I really enjoyed your lists. Your readers are definitely lucking out since they’ve gotten three Glenn Kenny movie lists in such a short amount of time.
I haven’t seen it myself, but I’m curious: has anyone seen Tarr’s MACBETH?
…I was just about to ask how it was/if it was even available when, lo and behold: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4z51HZJS4I
CARRY ON (though if you still want to weigh in on its…qualities, by all means)
What is particularly astonishing about Polanski’s Macbeth is that it’s the first film he shot after Sharon Tate’s murder, and features the gruesome slaying of MacDuff’s wife and unborn child. Very strong stuff.
Great lists, and as usual a great starting point for a discussion. What do we really want from a Shakespeare film adaptation: Great acting? Great visuals? A great reading of the play?
If great acting is a criterion, then “Much Ado” should be praised for Emma Thompson’s wonderful Beatrice, and Zeffirelli’s “Romeo & Juliet” with its two hopelessly amateurish young leads should be nowhere in sight. (And Tom: So what if Hussey’s breasts are “gorgeous”? Keanu Reeves has a great chest in “Much Ado” which was presumably the reason why he was cast, but that kind of argument doesn’t get us anywhere.)
If we want great visuals, then Orson Welles’ “Macbeth” is a major entry. But that film is better watched with the sound off, because the whole “Scottish burr” idea is a major mistake and most of the acting is terrible. (Brilliant actor though he is, Welles could never convince as a soldier.) I agree that Max Reinhardt may not be the most “cinematic” of directors, but as probably the greatest stage director of the first half of the 20th century he knows the text of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” inside out and, boy, does he know how form his eclectic cast into an ensemble! (And by the way, Rooney may be irritating, but his “wild child/destructive spirit” performance ties in beautifully with Reinhardt’s overall reading of the play.)
If we hope for a new interpretation of the play, then Branagh’s “Hamlet” is a big disappointment, because when preparing his “Mine is the longest”-film, Branagh forgot to come up with one. His film gives us the whole play without providing any reason why all of these characters need to be there.
And what if a film has a daring new interpreation, great visuals and fine acting, but you don’t agree with that interpretation? I admire Polanski’s “Macbeth” (apart from Jon Finch who merely channels Olivier’s speech patterns), but his “the world is a viscious circle” seems to me too reductive a reading.
Glenn, as usual I admire your vast background knowledge and eloquence, but here I find some of your criteria a tad inconsistent: I don’t quite get how you can praise Branagh’s casting for “Hamlet” as “audacious” when he basically uses the same bizarre approach that you castigate him for when discussing “Much Ado”. Branagh’s “Shakespeare for Everyone” (meaning “Shakespeare for every actor who wants to prove his/her mettle”)is problematic in both films. Yes, Keanu is laughable, but so is 71-year-old Jack Lemmon as Marcellus the guard. What is Lemmon supposed to protect Denmark from – the next pension reform? Then there is Billy Crystal trying on the First Gravedigger role for size, while one of the world’s greatest living Shakespeare actors, Simon Russell Beale, is relegated to the sidelines as the Second Gravedigger. And Charlton Heston may be or may not be in on the joke, but his Player King is like so many of his performances – proficient, but utterly, utterly dull. Kudos for giving us Julie Christie as Gertrude, though.
I also don’t quite understand how you can praise Zeffirelli’s “R & J” for “textual fidelity” when he cuts more than60% of the text. Yes, it has “eye candy”, but all he comes up with (courtesy of De Santis) are pretty shots; when he has to combine them to sequences he mostly fails. (The opening brawl is a shambles, and fearfully “rustic” like the worst of his opera productions.) To me, this “R & J” is the least “fresh” of them all – with its hippy-drippy Romeo and flowerchild Juliet as well as its simplificatin of the play to a “the parents are always to blame” scenario, it is as clearly stuck in 1968 as Chuck Norris is stuck in the 1980s. As for “historical significance” – all it showed was that you can have a hit with Shakespeare on film if you cater enough to your target audience and capture the zeitgeist.
Finally, I’d like to throw my 10 cents into the hat by recommending a film that hasn’t been mentioned so far: Renato Castellani’s gorgeous 1954 version of “Romeo and Juliet” – as much eye candy as you could possibly want, but supported by an intelligent interpretation and fine acting, especially by Laurence Harvey and Flora Robson.
Oh, and what about the Mary Pickford/Douglas Fairbanks “Taming of the Shrew”? It’s clunky, widely uneven, erratically acted, and changes most of the plot,but it is also a lot of fun.
Yellow Sky and Forbidden Planet are entertaining takes on The Tempest. If I could consider them as Shakespeare films, I’d rank them just behind Throne of Blood.
“Man From Laramie” anyone.…
“(And Tom: So what if Hussey’s breasts are “gorgeous”? Keanu Reeves has a great chest in “Much Ado” which was presumably the reason why he was cast, but that kind of argument doesn’t get us anywhere.)”
It wasn’t really an argument, but an aside, and a personal remembrance of something that awed me as a child. Perhaps I expressed it clumsily, but it was the first time I remember being moved, both aesthetically and, yes, erotically, by the human form. Before that moment, I had no concept of either, and had in fact been rather resolute in my ambition to be a priest. This was abandoned a year or two later, but that’s another story.
I had assumed this sort of awakening was a universal thing– whether it was cinematic or in the flesh, a woman or a man– and took the occasion, perhaps unwisely, to share the circumstances of mine.
I did not intend that to stand as an argument in its behalf. I would need to see the film again to mount any such argument, and as it is OOP, that won’t be happening soon. If I was to mount an argument, I dimly remember the sword-fights being rather spectacular, and while the leads were ill-equipped, I’d be surprised if their earnestness didn’t make up for it. Mercutio was pretty great when I saw the film again about ten years ago.
I understand that John Lydon, growing up in a bleak world without the Sex Pistols, had to find inspiration where he could. How fortunate that people of our time need not suffer polio, chicory coffee, or Olivier’s cinematic Maramite (far worse than cultural vegetables!)
(that said, I think Olivier’s Henry V is flat-out brilliant—less immersive than Branaugh’s, at least for modern audiences, but infinitely smarter in how it toys with stage conventions on film)
And yeah, while Scofield’s performance is great in the Brooks Lear, it really is the directing that I love. The blurry trial scene, in particular—it’s a terrific visualization of both Lear’s collapsing consciousness and the play’s collapsing sense of space. It’s true that the art-film inspirations are a little heavily foregrounded; it feels like the work of a Shakespeare man making a movie, not a filmmaker doing Shakespeare. But I’m okay with that, when it produces such a weird, powerful, and genuinely unique film—it may be second-hand, but there’s nothing elselike it. Much like GANJA & HESS, Brook’s lack of cinematic experience takes him places that a native filmmaker might not think to go. It’s certainly reductive—the Edgar/Edmund cutting, in particular, transforms the story pretty dramatically—but it’s one of the few Shakespeare films that I really feel conveys the weirdness of Elizabethian theater in a modern context.
As for the R&J wars: Understand, I don’t say ‘generational preference’ to imply that the olds don’t get it. Just that there really is a gap in how people born before and after MTV perceive teenage life, and R&J is a play that is all about teenage emotion—it’s about the horror that results from a world where everyone with agency behaves like a child. Given that, the Luhrmann does a better job (for me!) at immersing the audience in the blazing irrationality of the young, without which the whole story doesn’t make sense (and has Postlethwaite stealing scenes as the Friar).
One of the lovely things about theater is that everyone understands that plays are constantly being restaged to suit changing times, and you’re not doing a “remake”. They’re supposed to be dramatically reinterpreted, and it’s understood that a staging is aimed at its own time and place. So I don’t think it’s at all a knock on any director to say that his Shakespeare film (or production) was just right for its time, but doesn’t have the same effect on audiences fifty years later—it’s theater, it’s meant to be used and re-used, and productions of it *should* feel dated. Almereyda’s Hamlet is very much a Hamlet for the 90s—the wonderful Blockbuster joke will probably be incomprehensible to audiences in thirty years—but it’s still great, in part because its so specific to its moment.
I am sorta fascinated by the debate about which actors aren’t up to playing the leads in Romeo and Juliet, though. I thought that DiCaprio was a weak actor but a great Romeo, but the leads in the Zefferelli were just terrible. But I’m not sure it is possible to seem like a good actor while playing Romeo and Juliet—they’re hammy, drippy people, and I can’t imagine anyone young enough to play the roles having the self-distancing necessary to not come off like complete prats. But that’s okay! They are complete prats!
The Godard “Lear” is wonderful, though yeah, not really Shakespeare’s (it’s probably my favorite of his films from that period, maybe because I got more of the references than others, but also because it has some of the most dynamic performances). But I do love how the combination of names on the credits list—Shakespeare! Woody Allen! Molly Ringwald!—got it into so many mainstream, suburban video stores, where it confused many shoppers. That number included my poor parents, who saw the box, thought “A Shakespeare film with Woody Allen! Well, this’ll be neat!” and then called me, querulously inquiring if I could clarify what the fuck they just sat down for. My father described it as a movie about old guys staring at the camera and pointing, which is not entirely off-base.
The Godard “King Lear” is great fun. Molly Ringwald said she truly enjoyed making it. Everyone mentions her and Woodyand Mailer, but more prominent in the cast are Peter Sellars, Leons Carax and Julie Delpy.
Welles started, but failed to finish a “Merchant of Venice.” He always hoped the money would come through one way or another as it did with his great “Othello.” But alas it didn’t for his “Merchant.”
Oh and speakign of “Much Ado About Nothing,” the mighty Joss Whedon has just shot a modern dress version in glorious black and white with a number of us usual gang – Nathan Fillion among them.
David E: I was thinking in particular of Sellars when I mentioned the high quality of acting in Godard’s Lear. Sellars does a lovely job of acting like someone confused and adrift in both an apocalyptic wasteland and a Godard movie—he’s a little more self-conscious than Godard’s usual performers, or at least more able to make that self-consciousness part of the text of his performance. Is he the same Peter Sellars who’s directed so many great opera productions?
WRT That Fuzzy Bastard’s observation about theater and plays (and operas for that matter)being restaged -
I don’t understand why that point isn’t made more frequently and forcefully about films these days. They’ve been based on properties other than original screenplays since the term ‘photoplay’ was in use, and somehow in the popular mind now it seems that a particular movie has got to be the Last Word and “remakes” are looked upon with disdain and further evidence of the decline, commercialization, coarsening, etc of the cinematic art.
Whatever its merits, the Coens’ TRUE GRIT was constantly being called a “remake” as many times as the Portis novel was referenced in the popular press.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that somewhere in the fullness of time there should be room for as many cinematic interpretations of, say, THE RIGHT STUFF, THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, LOLITA or a genuine take on THE HOT ZONE (that’s not as terminally stupid as OUTBREAK), as anything else movies are made from.
Sorry to be off-topic but why is the Salo comments thread closed?
And yes, Chimes at Midnight is a great movie.
I see that others have already chimed in with shout-outs to the Kozintsev HAMLET and LEAR. And I see that someone else has also asked about THE BAD SLEEP WELL, which really does owe a lot to Hamlet (but then again, what doesn’t?) And I’m very happy to see that Glenn has no love for that awful Aussie Macbeth and that he does have some fondness for Branagh’s HAMLET, which is some sort of masterpiece.
I only perused the comments, but has anyone said anything about:
1.) The Zeffirelli/Gibson HAMLET?
OR:
2.) The Mazursky/Cassavetes TEMPEST?
I find both of those to be deeply underrated.
In many was Sellars in “King Lear” is playing the Jean-Pierre Leaud role.
There used to be a saying that an actress under 35 couldn’t play Juliet properly. This thinking led ultimately to Norma Shearer’s Juliet. On the other hand Zeffirelli’s casting of teenagers because the text says they are is about as bad in its own way. DiCaprio could have been a wonderful Romeo but not in that version – and Shakespeare’s text might as well have been discarded (also true of the Almereyda Hamlet) – because the verse isn’t allowed to do its work and you’re left with actors talking funny. As often happens with cinema adaptations of Shakespeare, the poetry and the visuals are working at cross-purposes.
Mazursky’s “Tempest” is great fun. I suspect Godard got Molly Ringwald for “King Lear” becuase of her Miranda in Mazursky’s film. It was her very first role.
That Fuzzy Bastard: I agree, Olivier’s “Henry V” is terrific, and one of my favorite Shakespeare adaptations. Given its origins as an attempt to boost morale during the war, it’s not surprising that it gets a little flag-wavy at times, but I nevertheless found it unexpectedly thoughtful and innovative. Apparently, it was one of Stanley Kubrick’s and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s favorite films, so we must be on to something! 😉
I also find it amusing that Molly Ringwald can come up so often in a discussion of Shakespeare in the cinema! The fact that she was even in a Godard film is kind of awesome.
Back in 1990, I came out of a theatre on the Upper East Side with my then-partner, and we both agreed tha Zeffirelli’s HAMLET was the best version of Macbeth we had ever seen.
I watched only about 30 minutes of it (I would have stood for the rest, just to see how it would top its own crapiness, but I had other things to do), and it was more than 10 years ago, but I still hate ‘R+J’ with an Achillesian (does that word even exist?) fury. Quoth Malcolm Tucker, if ‘R+J’ were a person, I would tear its skin off, wear it on me and rub myself on its mother’s leg during her birthday party while whistling ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. ‘R+J’ stands for everything I despise on the fields of editing, cinematography, music, set décor, costume design, editing again, direction of actors, shitting on Shakespeare’s art, the whole works. But mostly editing.
The first half hour of ‘Performance’ is “sound and fury and over-playing” and a lot of other things, and for me it is one of the greatest movies ever made (the rest is very good, too, but loses too much of its manic edge and speed). When well done, a series of rapid-fire dissolves or blurry slow-motions or sudden explosions of color in a couple of seconds provide pure aesthetic bliss and quiet euphoria. When not, they inflict burning, silent pain and masochistic impotence.
And, yes, a lot of people I respect like ‘Moulin Rouge!’ a lot, and I maintain certain hopes on it… but I can’t work up the courage. I have the awful suspicion Baz Luhrman would enjoy the leather-faced leg-rubbing and Queen-whistling.
I’ve long believed that, if you wanted to plot the shape of an exponentially-declining curve of quality, ‘Everyone Says I Love You’, ‘Moulin Rouge!’ and ‘Across the Universe’ would provide perfect data points.
Films I would put in my top 10:
Kozintsev’s King Lear and MAYBE Taming of the Shrew with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks (would have to see it again, but I liked it a LOT the one time I saw it despite some of the clumsy sound editing typical of early talkies).
While its good, I don’t love the 1950’s Julius Caesar with James Mason and Brando (though they are both fine), but my current favorite performance of Shakespeare’s text is Edmund O’ Brian’s Casca. This really blew me away because it was so unexpected. While he always struck me as a good enough actor, I would not have guessed he would be so expert with Shakespearian text, but after seeing Julius Caesar I did some searches and saw that early in his career O’Brian made a big splash playing Shakespearian leads for Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater. Apparently he was known in real life for continually reeling off Shakespeare when he got drunk, (think he died from alcoholism-related illness) It really saddens me now we did not more opportunities to see him play Shakespearian parts on film.
Don’t much care for Olivier in any Shakespeare role I’ve seen him in. I guess Richard III is the best of his efforts but he still annoys me.
On average, I dislike Brannaugh as a director more than I like him, but think he did a fine job with Hamlet (which I have yet to see on either stage or screen to completely satisfy me) and Henry V. I sat down with an annotated version of “Love’s Labor Lost” once and had to rely heavily on footnotes in order to appreciate the jokes (which are brilliant but man! It’s amazing that there was a time when people might have gotten this stuff on the fly). Anyway, I came away with the feeling that this play is virtually impossible to appreciate cold. I think Brannaugh, realizing this, tried to find a parallel way to bring the now virtually impossible to understand exuberance of the text to life by replacing it with great popular songs. The film is indeed quite bad but I’d regard it as an interesting idea and a noble failure
Other Hamlets: For some reason I have never had any desire to see Zefferelli’s “R&J” but I actually think his Hamlet is surprisingly good, and Mel Gibson made a very good Hamlet (although personally I always picture Hamlet as a snarky teenager – which is something I appreciate about the Hamlet with Ethan Hawke).
While the film as a whole is not very good, there are moments (mostly in the ‘play’ scenes) in “Kiss Me Kate” that are wonderful. As a lyricist Cole Porter had the chops to take on Shakespeare and acquit himself well, and the dance sequence “From this moment on” is a real joy.
“Throne of Blood” is for me an unqualified masterpiece, but I sadly find “Ran” to be a mess. After his mental breakdown in I guess the 70’s, I sadly think Kurawawa lost the spark that made his best films great (although even in his earlier career he made some pretty bad films).
LOVE Throne of Blood and while I think Othello has many great moments, it is not able to overcome the many production problems that took place due to lack of proper financing.
Love as well “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, so beautiful, and especially enjoy Cagny’s performance of Bottom (initially wrote “Cagney’s Bottom” and then thought better of it).
Forgot to add, on the ‘worst’ Shakespearean movies I would add Asta Nielsen’s “Hamlet”.
As someone interested in silent film, I had long read about her ‘acclaimed’ performance as Hamlet and finally got a chance to see it at MOMA some years back.
SPOILER:
What none of the things I had read made mention of was that in this film, Hamlet is a woman sort of masquerading as a man. The film begins with Hamlet’s birth – for reasons I can’t remember the King needs this child to be a boy, so he and Gertrude lie to the world about the child’s gender and the poor little girl grows to adulthood with the mistaken impression that she is a he – THIS more than anything else contributes to why poor Hamlet is so confused.
Really, the whole thing is a travesty albeit completely hilarious. It is amazing the mystique that had accumulated around this performance, perhaps because nobody had actually seen the film.
I feel like this would be the point for a shout out to one of my favorite onscreen Hamlets: several minutes of Alfred Molina performing the role of the Dane as a boozy ham in Stanley Tucci’s “The Impostors.” It is, of course, a disastrously bad Hamlet, and incredibly funny.
Also, it’s a television show rather than a film, but the Canadian show “Slings and Arrows” has some genuinely excellent moments of Shakespeare.
Still, for great onscreen Shakespeare, it really doesn’t get better than Welles’ “Chimes at Midnight.” Had the opportunity to see a pristine 35mm print a couple years ago; it was a magnificent experience.
Does David Tennant’s recent “Hamlet” or Patrick Stewart’s “Macbeth” count as movies, or filmed versions of stage productions. Macbeth” especially rocks, the setting reimagined in teh 1950s Soviet Union, and the weird sisters as utterly creepy nursing sisters.
Also I was always fond of “Twelfth Night” with Ben Kingsley.
Bilge – I teach English and Film to 11–16 year olds and we compare and contrast the Zeffirelli and Branagh Hamlets. They always emotionally respond most to Scofield’s sad and vulnerable ghost rather than Brian Blessed’s, who looked more than capable of looking after himself, even dead. I found Gibson to be doing a little too much eye rolling for the rest of the film, however.