A History of Shakespeare on Screen

A History of Shakespeare on Screen chronicles how film-makers have re-imagined Shakespeare’s plays from the earliest exhibitions in music halls and nickelodeons to today’s multi-million dollar productions shown in megaplexes. Topics include the silent era, Hollywood in the Golden Age, the films of Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles, the television scene to include the BBC plays, the avant-garde cinema of Jarman and Greenaway, and non-Anglophone contributions from Japan and elsewhere. This second edition updates the chronology to the year 2003 and includes a new chapter on such recent films as John Madden’s Shakespeare in Love, Kenneth Branagh’s Love’s Labours Lost, Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet, and Billy Morrissette’s Scotland, Pa. An up-to-date filmography, bibliography, and index of names makes it invaluable as a one-volume reference work for specialists, while the accessible style will ensure that it also appeals to a wider audience of Shakespeareans and cinephiles.

• Unique coverage: deals with subject chronologically, with international coverage. Written in a way which will appeal to both specialists and enthusiasts/amateurs • This new edition updates chronology to 2003, with a new chapter on recent films. Filmography, bibliography and index of names have also been updated • Author extremely well known for his work in this area, and one of few people able to put Shakespeare films in context of both film and Shakespeare scholarship

Contents

Preface and acknowledgments to second edition; Preface to first edition; Acknowledgments; List of abbreviations; 1. Shakespeare in silence: from stage to screen; 2. Hollywood’s four seasons of Shakespeare; 3. Laurence Olivier directs Shakespeare; 4. Orson Welles: Shakespeare for the art houses; 5. Electronic Shakespeare: from television to the web; 6. Spectacle and song in Castellani and Zeffirelli; 7. Shakespeare movies in the age of angst; 8. Other Shakespeares: translation and expropriation; 9. Shakespeare in the cinema of transgression, and beyond; 10. The renaissance of Shakespeare in moving images; 11. Shakespeare in love, in love with Shakespeare: the adoration after the millennium.