Next week I'll be helping teach a Regent College extension course at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (yee haw! - one of my favourite spots on earth). As well as stagings of ROMEO & JULIET, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, RICHARD II, HEDDA GABLER and THE PIANO LESSON, we'll watch some film treatments: Baz Luhrmann's and Franco Zeffirelli's versions of R&J, and Trevor Nunn's TWELFTH NIGHT.

(M)Leary, I noticed in your movie journal that you just viewed the Luhrmann. Thoughts? (By the way, I think the brackets around "M" is a very nice touch.)

Anybody else want to weigh in on these or other Shakespeare films?


Ron

Thank you. I am trying to capture semantically the cypheric nature of cyberspace monikers. Or something like (that).

I have seen R+J twice this year. I have always been a fan of that film, Lurhmann really is one of the treasures of this modern age.

Cons: Danes' and Di Caprio's aren't what they could be. Thanks to the clever staging of Luhrmann, they pull it off. I suppose age-wise they are closer to the original, but I wonder if they could not have found someone less whiney for these parts. Danes has her moments, but they both seem too flat to be in love.

Pros: It is worth listening to the commentaries. They talk alot on them about how the project really was an attempt to do two things. One, to capture the real "spectacle" nature of the original productions. Shakespeare knew that to get the unwashed hordes into the theater, he needed something quick, violent, flashy, and sexy. The script of Romeo and Juliet is obviously all of these, but R+J really tries to embody this. Second, they wanted to update the language of the script. Not the text of the script itself, but the cultural language. So they went through the script and identified all of these cultural codes that could be transferred to now. Thus swords=flashy gunplay, youth=bold urban abandon, etc...

Great date night movie, but so much more. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts post-screening.

When I was in high school I really didn't like Baz Luhrmann's R+J, but I revisted it last year after Moulin Rouge! became one of my favorite films of recent years. And surprise, surprise...I liked it!

Also as an English major and taking many Shakespeare classes probably didn't hurt either. Same thing happened with Shakespeare In Love. When it first came out and I saw it and I didn't like it, but after taking numerous Shakespeare classes and reading most of The Bard's work, I began to see how much is really there. While I still like Saving Private Ryan better, I don't feel as bad about Shakespeare winning the award.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Ron, but didn't you once say that Ian McKellen's Nazified Richard III was the best Shakespeare film you had ever seen?

QUOTE

Correct me if I'm wrong, Ron, but didn't you once say that Ian McKellen's Nazified Richard III was the best Shakespeare film you had ever seen?

Are you trying to discredit him simply by stating that?

I'm a fan of that Richard III. I'm a bigger fan of Taymor's Titus, Kurosawa's Ran and Branaugh's Much Ado About Nothing and Henry V. I really want to see Throne of Blood.

Coincidentally, I read an interview with Harold Bloom on Friday and he was asked if he had enjoyed any of the nontraditional Shakespeare adaptations. He identified only Kurosawa's two, though I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't seen very many. I also wouldn't be surprised if he saw them and didn't like them.

Russell Lucas wrote:
: Are you trying to discredit him simply by stating that?

Not at all! I love that film too! Certainly much better than Olivier's version.

Ron,

Good to have you back, by the way. I hope all is well in Vienna. At least better than when I last saw it (in The Third Man. - I assume they've rebuilt some things.) I'd love to hear about your conference.

Quick thoughts on R+J (by Luhrmann): [SPOILERS for all Shakespearean tragedies - they all die]

>I use this film when discussing symbolism in cinema and so I have a number of examples of rather good and recurring imagery used throughout. 1st: Water - easily the strongest symbol. It is everywhere in this film, and I believe symbolizes death. The first time we see Juliet, her face is under water. Romeo - sitting looking at the ocean. Then, the first time they see each other it is through the aquarium. Everything about their relationship is overshadowed by their impending death. Their wooing scene is in a pool. After Merc, Tybalt, R, and J die, it is raining or begins to rain. Mantua - locale of Romeo's banishment - looks like southeastern Tuscon - desert - a sign of his safety or reprieve from death. And of course, when Romeo jumps down from the balcony after the consummation of their marriage fortells his "impending doom" whiule looking at him submerged in the pool.

>Luhrman makes some interesting choices: 1. The costumes the night of the ball are nice. Romeo as a knight (pilgrim) and juliet as an angel (saint). 2. The religious imagery is true to Shakespeare's intent, I believe. It is ever present and is almost irrelevant in light of the acts of both heroism and villany that are carried out in its name. 3. The ecstacy Romeo takes that represents "Queen Mab" makes sense of a speech that has always bothered me. It doesn't progress the plot or an important character and is waaaaaay too long. And Merc's delivery of that monologue is way over the top in this movie as well.

>Finally, just to be sure, I thought you should know about this film's role in what Luhrmann calls the Red Curtain Trilogy. This film is the second installment (Strictly Ballroom precedes and Moulin Rouge! is the last). Luhrmann claims that his goal was to tell the same story (forbidden love) three times but each time, to use a device other than direct language to communicate the deepest elements of love between the main characters. Those devices, respectively in the three films are, ballroom dancing, shakespearean verse, and pop music.


Hope all that helps!

Have fun!

Ron wrote:
: Kenny's MUCH ADO and HANK CINQ were fabulous - pity about the
: Danish monstrosity, eh?

What about Kenny's other film, AMOROUS EFFORTS MISPLACED? I think he might be the first director-star to make four Shakespeare films (five, if we count THAT BLACK DUDE, which he only starred in). IIRC, Peter Birnie began his interview with Kenny (around the time that THE DANISH MONSTROSITY, his third effort, came out) by noting that Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier had made only three Shakespeare movies each.

Oh, and for what its worth. Brannagh's Henry V is my favorite cinematic shakespeare.

Anybody hear anything about the possiblity of knighthood for him?

Call me stodgy, but I still think Zefirelli's R&J is definitive, if a bit breathless.

I confess, I haven't actually seen Luhrmann's R+J, but as much as I liked Simply Ballroom & (finally) Moulin Rouge, I probably won't.

For non-traditional Shakespeare, Ran is right up there, followed closely by the whip-smart California suburban highschool version of The Taming of the Shrew, Ten Things I Hate about You

Almost nobody agrees with me, but I think Branagh's Hamlet is self-indulgent and too dashed long.

[quote]Call me stodgy, but I still think Zefirelli's R&J is definitive, if a bit breathless.[/quote] Okay, you're stodgy. Interestingly, I find the line on Luhrmann drawn pretty sharply down generational lines. I've given up trying to convince boomers he's brilliant. I just tell them, "It's not made for you." I don't know if you're a boomer, but the stodgy comment made me think of that.
[quote]
Almost nobody agrees with me, but I think Branagh's Hamlet is self-indulgent and too dashed long.[/quote] Long, I'll go for, even tedious. Self-indulgent... no. Brannagh's performance is the only thing worth watching there. It's the horrendous cameos by lemmon, charlton heston and I think Buddy Hacket as ophelia that I can't stomach. Brannagh's got the chops to carry a three hour film, but its the others in the film who drop the ball performance-wise. Although that "Ghost of Hamlet" scene in the trees is painfully long and dull!

[quote]Oh, and for what its worth. Brannagh's Henry V is my favorite cinematic shakespeare. [/quote]About a year and a half ago, I saw the St. Crispan Day's speech from the Olivier version (done while England was at war) and the Branaugh version. Same words, very different tenor. The older one seemed to carry the idea, "we're going to war, tra-la, tra-la, what heroes we will be." Brannagh was more somber. The battle scenes that follow are also widely different. The Olivier version has brightly colored sterile battle going on, while the newer version is muddy, bloody and dark. Make an interesting comparison that can be used to talk about the different ways people interpret the Bible (or whatever literature) or the different spin the Evangelists gave to things Jesus said and did.

Haven't seen Olivier's version, but that Crispen day speech moves me to chills every time I see it. I have memorized it I love it so. He delivers it like a king who know what its like to be a commoner. I'm gonna go watch it again!

BethR wrote:
: Almost nobody agrees with me, but I think Branagh's Hamlet is
: self-indulgent and too dashed long.

I was going to say something like, "Nay, to the contrary, I believe everyone who has voiced an opinion on this film so far here has basically agreed with you," but then DanBuck opened his cakehole.

DanBuck wrote:
: Brannagh's performance is the only thing worth watching there. It's the
: horrendous cameos by lemmon, charlton heston . . .

You, sir, are smoking crack. Heston's cameo is one of the few things about that film that I really liked -- and I know for a fact that I'm hardly the only critic who felt that way. I don't remember Branagh's performance well enough to say what I thought of it, but if it was anywhere near as over-the-top as his direction, then I guess it MIGHT have been worth watching in a sort of rubber-necking gawk-at-the-traffic-accident sort of way.

Darrel Manson wrote:
: Make an interesting comparison that can be used to talk about the
: different ways people interpret the Bible (or whatever literature) or the
: different spin the Evangelists gave to things Jesus said and did.

But of course. Not to mention the spin that we give the evangelists -- just compare Pasolini's version of Matthew, in which Jesus becomes a sort of proto-Marxist, with the Visual Bible's version of Matthew, in which Jesus becomes a sort of proto-Promise Keeper.

8O THAT DANISH MONSTROSITY you speak of happens to be one of my favorite films! And it's easily my favorite film adaptation of Hamlet (yes, even more so that Olivier's and far superior to the horrendous Zeffirelli/Gibson version). Basically though, I love Brannaugh and all his films, though I have yet to track down Love's Labour Lost, though it looks rather interesting.

How do I delete a duplicate post?

After such a violent reaction to my affinity, I am backing off a bit. I like brannagh and I am no doubt biased to his performances. But what a shmuck to let Emma go! Her films got better and his got worse.

Anyway, yes, the film was poorly directed and just too dang big for its britches.

Hawke's Hamlet had me sleeping twenty minutes in, and I'm a fan. I much prefer ALL his other films.

[quote]

DanBuck wrote:
: Brannagh's performance is the only thing worth watching there. It's the
: horrendous cameos by lemmon, charlton heston . . .

You, sir, are smoking crack. Heston's cameo is one of the few things about that film that I really liked -- and I know for a fact that I'm hardly the only critic who felt that way.
[/quote]Well, some people go for gimmicks... I don't.


By the way, can I say, I'm very excited to be the target of a post from Peter that contains both the words Cakehole and Crack(in reference to the drug).

[quote] "Do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings... It out-herods Herod. Pray you avoid it."
[/quote]

I got a good kick out of this thanks.

Basically though, without veering too far into "Bloom Country", I generally prefer Shakespeare that is close to the original text. I mean, let's face it, the stories aren't the thing that sets Shakespeare apart from so many others (people had being doing the stories of R+J and Hamlet for years and years), but it's his language that I really appreciate. Which is why I like Brannaugh's version, with it's bloated length and all. He had the guts (some would say audacity) to present the play in it's entirety. Also, for me, Brannaugh was so much more believable as Hamlet than Mel (not knocking Mel, just felt that way). Also, I loved the costumes, the set design (the amazing hall of mirrors where Claudius and Co. spy on Hamlet while he feigns madness), and go ahead and call them "gimmicks" but I liked the cameos from Robin Williams, Billy Crystal and Heston.

This is the same reason that I like Baz Luhrmanns' R+J, because it sticks to the original language for the most part. I'm not really a Bloom purist, but as a big Shakespeare fan, I prefer to hear the actual verse rather than some translation.

Oh, and I really would like to see Kurosawa's Throne of Blood. See, I agree that there is a place for interpretations.

P.S. I suppose "horrendous" is too strong a word for the Zeffirelli Hamlet. In grade 12 I did a back to back (2 days in a row) comparison of the two films and I just sided overwhelmingly in favor of the Brannaugh film.

Oh yeah, and in my Renaissance Drama class this past spring, I got into an argument with 2 other students over the whole Gibson/Brannaugh issue. That was fun.

I can't stand it any more:

Branagh.

Going away now. Sorry.

[quote]I can't stand it any more:
[/quote]Ah, those English profs. Mine in college must have had a clotting problem, she kept bleeding all over my papers - there was certainly a lot of red all over.

I said I was sorry :wink:

From now on I'm off-duty!

While we're at it, Beth, it's 'life,' not 'lyf.'

[quote]While we're at it, Beth, it's 'life,' not 'lyf.'[/quote]

I apolojize for my attroshious spelling. I'll tri to pay moore attention in the futchure. :twisted:

DanBuck wrote:
: But what a shmuck to let Emma go! Her films got better and his got worse.

Hmmm. They divorced in late 1995. Since then, Kenneth has made roughly 18 films of varying quality (including TV work), the two most recent of which (Rabbit Proof Fence and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) weren't half-bad. (Correction: The Harry Potter film, of course, was not all that great, but Branagh was certainly one of the best things about it.) Meanwhile, Emma has made only 7 films (including TV work), only two of which -- The Winter Guest and Disney's Treasure Planet -- are remotely notable, as far as I can tell.

: : Heston's cameo is one of the few things about that film that I really liked
: : -- and I know for a fact that I'm hardly the only critic who felt that way.
:
: Well, some people go for gimmicks... I don't.

What's the gimmick? Heston is a clasically trained actor whose very first film role, IIRC, was in an independent director's adaptation of a Shakespeare play. There is nothing at all "gimmicky" about seeing Heston in a Shakespeare film.

The truly "gimmicky" thing about this film was the way Branagh threw in those really dumb effects, like the way he throws his sword ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE MIRRORED HALL and kills Claudius with it.

I thought Emma Thompson was superb in Wit (granted, it was an HBO movie, but still a movie nonetheless).

[quote]Almost nobody agrees with me, but I think Branagh's Hamlet is self-indulgent and too dashed long.[/quote]
Actually, I think most of the English-speaking world agrees that Branagh's Hamlet is exactly as described above. Rowan Atkinson even incorporated a joke about this in the New-Year Black Adder special. When Black adder travels back in time and means Shakespeare, he kicks the bard:

Edmund:
...and that is for Ken Branagh's endless uncut four-hour version of Hamlet.

Shakespeare:
Who's Ken Branagh?

Edmund:
I'll tell him you said that. And I think he'll be very hurt.
[img]http://www.blackadderhall.com/images/watermarked/autograph_small.jpg[/img]

It's also horribly miscast in a few places (Jack Lemmon). That maintains a long Branagh tradition (Keanu, anyone?) But I *do* agree that Heston's presence was a treat. I understand that his 'performance' in the film was over-stylized: but it's supposed to be! If only he wasn't such a thug in real life.

Translation was a poor choice of words, what I really meant was films that use more of a vernacular version of the text or delete scenes and alter lines (ala Zefferelli's Hamlet and R+J) rather than sticking to the Shakespearean language. Also keep in mind that I just finished a year long class on Shakespeare recently and now my view is a wee bit more critically formed than it was when I posted that.

Speaking of "Bloom Country" I was chastised by my professor for referring to Shakespeare as "THE Bard", as he felt that I should watch that I don't fall into "Bardolatry."

Incase you're interested here's a short essay I wrote on Baz's R+J, defending it as a great adaptation:

As many of you may have read, MIT is giving away all its courses, on the Web, for free. (The "OpenCourseWare" program).

Well, they have a class "Shakespeare, Film and Media that looks very promising.

(Of course, if you really want to feel like a nerd, check out the Hip Hop course. At MIT.)

Hey Anders, thanks for posting your paper. I enjoyed it, and totally agree that Baz's is a truly great, imaginative, even visionary interpretation. I thought one section in particular was really perceptive;

Don't know about Zef, but I do recall that the Golden Turkey Award for "Worst Credit Line of All Time" went to the 1929 version of The Taming of the Shrew for: "By William Shakespeare with additional dialogue by Sam Taylor."

That kind of award makes me wonder if the PFCC, in addition to the regular awards, should come up with a "poison of the year" award or similar.

Just saw TITUS, part of finishing up a Top Ten Shakespeare Movies article for CT Movies. Oh my gosh, what a brilliant film! A silk purse of a movie from a sow's ear of a play - a silk purse filled with human entrails, but a silk purse nonetheless.

I'd write more but, promises to keep / miles to go, all that. For now.... Goths indeed. Horror movies. Incredible dream and fantasy sequences. Over-the-top post-apocalypse badness: BOY AND HIS DOG, ROAD WARRIOR. Japan / Hong Kong chopsocky flicks, I'm thinking Sex & Zen & A Bullet In The Head: bet Tarantino would like this. When the story gets dumb, Taymor cranks up the camp: music is a big tool here. Several directors' careers launched by churning out a (more or less dumb) exploitation / horror movie; Corman quickies, MS. 45, Coens' BLOOD SIMPLE; wonder if this very early Shakespeare was a similar attempt to grab spotlight, out-Jacobean the Jacobeans? When the wagon arrives with the heads, I'm thinking Tom Waits / David Lynch. Is there a VERY rough sketch of LEAR, here? Aging warrior begins play making rash / bloody decisions, brings immense suffering, learns humility through daughter in midst of madness? Mostly this is just no holds barred bloody, but are there fumbling gestures toward redemption? Even the vilest parents love their children: at times, Titus's love for his daughter and his grandson are very beautiful; Tamora pleads for her eldest son, and Aaron's only shred of humanity is his desperate love for his son.

Ron Reed's top ten Shakespeare movies.

Let the debate begin!

I was somewhat disappointed with Luhrmann's portrayal of Mercutio. Mercutio is my favorite character out of the entire Shakespeare pantheon, and to have him portrayed as "popular nightclub guy with matching pistols" was very annoying.

Nnnnnnngahhhhhh! Ron...RON...et tu?

Okay, it's not so bad, but...

Good grief, t'was torture and not mercy for me to watch those two--and I'm a pretty forgiving guy when it comes to young actors tackling Shakespeare--but Leo as Romeo was about as provocative as Robert Sean Leonard as Claudio in Much Ado (and every other film he's mistily entreated his way through)--except substitute "I'm earnest! I'm earnest!" with "I'm angst ridden! I'm angst ridden!"

Now, I have a good deal of respect for the film, even though it's the only Luhrmann film that didn't hit the mark for me specifically because of those two leads; I blame casting, popularity and demographic targeting for my severe disappointment as I left--disappointment born of a lukewarm sensation as I left the theatre wondering what that film would have been if he'd cast principles not so popular but having a grasp of the language that could elevate it to soaring. I felt like I did when I watched Madonna playing Evita Peron: Alan Parker built the entire film up around her so abject failure would have been truly difficult, and Luhrmann surrounded his leads with so much style and panache that the content of their dialogue seemed secondary to their intentions. But intentions, as we know, are built into the very text of Shakespeare--I'd have rather seen the dialogue translated into modern vernacular than watch them attempt to sell the classical in the ham-handed way they did.

I found an integrity to Luhrmann's vision that was vibrant and exciting in a good portion of the film--except when I saw Leo and Clare take the screen together--and I will concede without reservation that it was very effective for many younger viewers. But for me, it's the difference between having an impressionable mind listen to a $12,000 Yamaha keyboard set on Grand Piano play Adagio Sostenuto and listening to a Grand Piano playing the same piece. It's a matter of degrees, and for me, Leo and Clare gave it their best, but fell quite short of a top ten rating.

I would watch a "modern language" version of Romeo and Juliet only if it included a variation of the Queen Mab scene. Just to see what the modernists would put in its place.

I would probably put Romeo + Juliet at the top of my list, despite sharing all Jason's reservations about its leads. The fact is that, despite DiCaprio's stupendous pouting, it is by far the most full blooded and interesting adaptation of Shakespeare for modern cinema. It chose its target audience, it chose to invest the original language with modern meanings and just *ran* with it. Hitting every single cultural mark upon the way. Sure; it isolated an entire generation of movie goers most of whom were the traditional audience for Shakespeare adaptations but that was kinda the point! I do love the Zeferelli film and I would heartily agree it's the better love story of the two. But to call Romeo and Juliet a love story is doing it a great dis-service.

Romeo + Juliet is what genius adaptation is all about; something very few other Shakespeare adaptations realise (with the notable exceptions of Trevor Nunn's Twelth Night and Richard Loncraine's Richard III. Although marks off to the former for the wasting of Ben Kingsley who, quite hilariously, is allowed to play Ghandi for the entire film) As Salman Rushdie once put it: Shakespeare is the sacred cow which cinema needs to start defiling if it's going to have his words have the same effect on modern audiences which they did back in the Elizabethan/Jacobean theatre.

Phil.

I'm guessing you haven't seen Taymor's Titus?