Shakespeare Films - S and D

Destroy: Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, as well as that other well known version of it from the 60's or 70's. Take the West Side Story too while you're at it. Will no one ever make an acceptable R&J?

English lit teachers who can't teach are even deadlier to the enjoyment of Shakespeare.

Search: The 1930s-set version of Richard the Third.
Destroy: The Mel Gibson Hamlet.

I really don't like most film Shakespeare though. The actors tend to ponce around like, um, high school drama queens. That's why the updates are great, with the exception of Baz Luhrmann's halfassed job of non-update. It's not like I have a bar against the old language cos I can read it fine, it's that the actors...generally seem like they're being forced to do readings in Japanese. Very dramatic ones.

Henry V is pretty good though, the Ken Branaugh version and Much Ado About Nothing is at least watchable.

I haven't seen Olivier's Hamlet, but he did a great Richard III.

but, there is a silent 15 minute hamlet, from the 1920's??, that id love to see. to bad it is lost forever. anyone know any more about this??

there's a few seconds missing from the scene where john falstaff is recruiting soldiers to accompany him to war, but other than that it's supposed to be a decent transfer.

Does "My Own Private Idaho" count? (There's a good deal of dialogue paraphrased from Henry IV pts. 1 and 2.)

Destroy: the '30s version of A Midsummer Night's Dream with Mickey Rooney as Puck.

Thanks for that, bruice. A bit pricey but it might be worth it. Welles's Macbeth is pretty classic too, just because Welles threw out half the text and filmed it on some really bizarre-looking sets, like one of those rubber boulder-covered planets on Star Trek or something.

Destroy Shakepearean comedies (just destroy them and leave me with the histories and tragedies)
Destroy The Lion King

I don't really care abt if shakespeare adaptations are anyway true to the source (and this Hamelet as far as i remember is very true to shakespeare) but it is one of my top film experiences ever.

I hope one day to see it again somewhere, as it still haunts me.

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/5051/hamasta.JPG

i like the baz luhrman, tho i think it loses a lot on video by being ensmallened

Not alone. Ran does an amazing job with King Lear. One of my favorite film sequences ever is the one where all the shit breaks loose and the old father is dodging arrows, the concubines commit suicide, and there are fires everywhere...and for the duration of the whole sequence, you don't hear any sounds - just the score. Then, the first sound you hear after that is the sound of Taro getting shot. BRILLIANT!! Just brilliant. And the actress who played Lady Kaede...unbelievable. I read that the budget for the film was $12 million (all those costumes! all those soldiers! the sets!). I mean, good lord, that covers maybe the catering costs for a film nowadays.

You guys know that Strange Brew (with the McKenzie brothers) is kinda based on Hamlet, right?

Keith Chegwin as Fleance

The next rung up from extra and dogsbody
and all the clichés are true – days waiting for
enough light, learning card games, penny-ante,
while fog rolls off the sea, a camera
gets moisture in its gate, and Roman Polanski
curses the day he chose Snowdonia.

He picked you for your hair to play this role:
a look had reached Bootle from Altamont
that year. You wouldn’t say you sold your soul
but learned your line inside a beating tent
by candlelight, the shingle dark as coal
behind each wave, and its slight restatement.

“A tale told by an idiot . . .” “Not your turn,
but perhaps, with time and practice . . .”, the Pole starts.
Who’s to say, behind the accent and that grin,
what designs you had on playing a greater part?
The crew get ready while the stars go in.
You speak the words you’d written on your heart

just as the long-awaited sunrise fires
the sky a bluish pink. Who could have seen
this future in the late schedules, where I
can’t sleep, and watch your flight from the big screen;
on the other side of drink and wondering why,
the zany, household-name years in between?

(bad picture but the only one I can find)
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/8029/montagues.html

B-but it was only made in 1987! No wonder you found it so confusing. Watching films before they exist - c/d?

http://207.198.124.134/ophelia.jpg

http://www.simons-rock.edu/~alabra/oph/35.jpg

Predictably, I thought this said "Tits". Comedy bedlam may now ensue.

Dakatin, what's your new name mean? I get sad when people don't return my emails; do you not answer to Erik anymore?

Dan, do you read with your penis too?

Hamlet - um, Branagh. although I like Olivier's calmness and Gibson's antics.

Gertrude - they're all bags! Except Glenn Close. And the one from Hawke's.

Claudius - Kyle MacLachlan was interesting, but nobody is Derek Jacobi.

Ophelia - [Insert nubile hot babe here.]

Fortinbras - Rufus Sewell, by default!!!1

Laertes - who?

various lords, attendants, maids and servants - Billy Crystal.

The Ghost - Paul Scofield, in Gibson's

Osric - am I alone in thinking Robin Williams was okay in that role? Just okay, mebbe, not atrocious.

Polonius - lots to choose from here: Ian Holm, Bill Murray. Tough to do on film, methinks.

did I miss anybody?

Note: I have not seen the Russian version alluded to, but I have seen the Russian Lear (translated by Pasternak), and that's probably as good as Lear will get on film, imho.

http://www.starkecounty.com/hamlet_statistics.gif

ADDENDUM: Godard's Lear WAS atrocious. All that time wasted waiting for Woody as the Fool? Gaaaagh! Burgess Meredith was good, but, aieeeee, total monkey business.

http://www.shakespearemag.com/images/lear1.jpg

I like that phrase!

Welles' Othello is even better than Chimes at Midnight.

The best Hollywood Shakespeare is likely the Julius Caesar with James Mason, Gielgud and Brando.

The Branagh Much Ado About Nothing isn't bad, esp Denzel, Emma and Keanu.

The best Olivier film I've seen is Richard III. (major source for Johnny Rotten)

I really hate Greenaway's Prospero's Books.

What's the verdict on Scotland, PA?

Total lurve for Branagh everything.

Michael Almereyda, who made a splendid modern corporate Hamlet film w/ Ethan Hawke no less, has done Cymbeline in a biker-gang world.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/film-comment-selects-2015-cymbeline

I'd like to see Godard's King Lear and also Peter Brook's version from '71.

10 Things I Hate About You is clearly a vast improvement on the original.

I like 10TIHAY. That said, in my opinion it's a close second to the Pickford-Fairbanks Taming of the Shrew (1929).

Can anyone recommend a version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"?

have only seen the deHavilland-Cagney-Rooney one from the '30s, which is a mixed bag but worthwhile

I need to see that anyways, that's the one Kenneth Anger says he was a child actor in.

love Chimes at Midnight

I've still never seen any of Welles's Shakespeare films.

Titus rocks. The Shakespeare scholar at my university agrees. I like Olivier's Hamlet a lot too.

And, not to be a killjoy, but it looks like we have reached a point where Ten Things I Hate About You is officially Overrated. It's far from awful, but c'mon.

Cymbeline gettin divisive press

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/cymbeline

I'd like to see Godard's King Lear and also Peter Brook's version from '71.

― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, March 4, 2015 5:15 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Paul Scofield is good in the Brook, but on the whole it's maybe a bit too chilly and spare (though it's been nearly 20 years since I saw it). def worth seeking out

Thanks, I like the idea of Peter Brook but I've yet to explore either his Shakeapeare or stuff like "Marat/Sade"

Saw Godard's King Lear on its one week run in London at the old Cannon Swiss Centre cinema, back in the day. Only things I can remember about it are Woody Allen unexpectedly turning up (and having his speaking voice obscured on the soundtrack), Burgess Meredith (the quasi-Lear) saying, "Are you making a play for my daughter?" to the 'Shakespeare' character, and Godard wearing dreadlocks in his hair and playing 'Pluggy', "an eccentric professor obsessed with Xeroxing his own hand." (The whole wiki entry is worth a read - "The film earned $61,821 against an estimated budget of $2,000,000.") Now that Love Streams has been given the Criterion treament, maybe this will follow.

Ha, I (mis)read about this upthread and figured it had to be some joke post. (How could Molly Ringwald and Peter Sellers be in a movie together?

It's Peter Sellars the American theatre director, rather than Peter Sellers the English comic actor (who died in 1980).

Yeah, I read up on the facts after seeing the film's second mention upthread

Only things I can remember about it are Woody Allen unexpectedly turning up (and having his speaking voice obscured on the soundtrack)

Woody has got to talk about this someday. Hopefully he'll be doing so from jail

Almereyda's Cymbeline is pretty good! Hawke, Dakota Johnson, Ed Harris, Leguizamo, Delroy Lindo all fine.

also Milla Jovovich sings Dylan's "Dark Eyes"

Terrific production of KING LEAR on BBC4 last night. It's from 2018 I see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Lear_(2018_film)

Missed it, I should pay more attention to BBC4's schedules.

it'll be on iplayer, i noted it was on but i was watching Wolf Hall at the time

saw it on amazon prime last year, really fantastic

Yes!

I wish to watch all of WOLF HALL again soon.

Was that BBC4 King Lear from 2018 the one with Anthony Hopkins?

Yes.

Caught the end of it last night. The guys in military uniforms seemed a bit too obvious an update.

Thanks!