A little Shakespeare!!!

Various versions, both modern and timely to their day, have been made, and some are very tough seeing, and others are ... we don't even know how to rate them, because they are so far and apart from the regular forms we see in theater and film, and in this case specially theater in most of our home areas, because the high level performances of some of these will never make it to a small town.

Here are some samples ... not all of them but at least some of the ones I have seen and reviewed over the years. Many of these I did not review, btw, as I did not quite have words for, but I will finish the review of some of these I had not done before, assuming I can find them and see them again.

Oh my word ... I have listed only ten of these reviewed (marked with the X out of 52 listed?) I've seen at least two thirds of them with some of the older stuff being the toughest to get/find.

Michael Almereyda -- Hamlet (Hawke, MacLachlan, Shapard, Stiles, Schreiber, Murray)

Michael Almereyda -- Cymbeline (Hawke, Harris, Jovovich, Leguizamo)

Rodney Bennett -- Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Jacobi, Bloom, Stewart)

x Kenneth Branaugh -- Much Ado About Nothing (Branaugh, Thompson, Washington, Keaton)

Kenneth Branaugh -- As You Like It (Kevin Kine)

Kenneth Branaugh -- Hamlet (Branaugh, Jacobi, Christie, Winslet)

Kenneth Branaugh -- Henry V (Branaugh, Jacobi, Thompson, Dench)

x Peter Brook -- King Lear (Scofied, Cusack, Magee, Hogg)

Stuart Burge -- Julius Caeser (Heston, Robarts, Gielgud, Rigg)

Stuart Burge -- Othello (Olivier, Finlay, Smith, Jacobi)

Claude Chabrol -- Ophelia 

Joel Coen -- The Tragedy of Macbeth (Washington, McDormand, Gleeson)

Bill Colleran -- Hamlet (Burton)

Paul Czinner -- As You Like It (Lawrence Olivier)

Christopher Dixon -- Kiss Me, Petruchio (Julia, Street, Papp)

Ralph Fiennes -- Coriolanus (Fiennes, Redgrave)

x Jean Luc Godard -- Godard's King Lear (Meredity, Ringwald, Allen)

x Peter Greenaway -- Prospero's Books (Gielgud, Pasco)

x Sir Peter Hall -- A Midsummer Night's Dream (Dench, Richardson, Holm, Rigg, Mirren, Warner)

Charlton Heston -- Antony and Cleopatra (Heston)

Michael Hoffman -- A Midsummer Night's Dream (Pfeiffer, Everett, Kline, Tucci, Flockhart, Bale, Marceau)

Derek Jarman -- The Tempest (Williams, Toyah Wilcox, Johnson, Birkett)

Akira Kurosawa -- The Bad Sleep Well (Mifune)

x Akira Kurosawa -- Ran (Nakadai, Nezu, Ryu)

Akira Kurosawa -- Throne of Blood (Mifune, Yamada, Shimura, Kubo)

x Richard Loncraine -- Richard III (McKellen and a huge cast)

Will MacKenzie -- Atomic Shakespeare (Shepherd, Willis)

x John Madden -- Shakespeare in Love (Fiennes, Paltrow, Firth, Dench)

Joseph Mankiewicz -- Julius Caeser (Mason, Gielgud, Brando)

Penny Marshall -- Renaissance Man (DeVito, Hines, Begley Jr)

Jonathan Miller -- The Taming of the Shrew (John Cleese !!!)

Trevor Nunn -- Twelfth Night (Kingsley, Stubbs, Bonham Carter, 

Laurence Olivier -- Hamlet (Olivier, Simmons)

Laurence Olivier -- Richard III (Olivier, Gielgud, Richardson, Bloom)

Oliver Parker -- Othello (Fishburne, Jacob, Branagh)

Roman Polanski -- Macbeth (Finch, Annis, Shaw)

Michael Radford -- The Merchant of Venice (Pacino, Irons and Fiennes)

Tony Richardson -- Hamlet (Williamson, Hopkins, Faithfull)

Philip Saville -- Hamlet at Elsinore (Plummer, Shaw, Sutherland, Kinnear, Caine)

Martin Shardlow -- The Black Adder (Atkinson, Blessed, Gray, East)

Edwin Sherin - King Lear (Earl Jones, Julia, Auberjonois)

John Sichel -- The Merchant of Venice (Olivier and Plowright)

x Tom Stoppard -- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Roth, Oldman, Dreyfus, Ian Richardson)

Julie Taymor -- Titus (Hopkins, Lange, Feore, Rhys Meyers)

Dave Thomas/Rick Moranis -- Strange Brew (Thomas, Moranis, Sydow)

x Orson Welles -- Chimes at Midnight (Welles, Richarson, Gielgud)

Orson Welles -- Macbeth (Welles, Nolan, O'Herlihy, MacDowall)

Robert Wise -- West Side Story (Wood, Beymer, Tamblyn, Moreno, Chakiris)

Feng Xiaogang - The Banquet (Li, You, Wu)

Franco Zeffirelli -- Romeo and Juliet (Whiting, Hussey, McEnery)

Franco Zeffirelli -- The Taming of the Shrew (Taylor, Burton, York, Hordern)

Franco Zeffirelli -- Hamlet (Gibson, Close, Bates, Scofield, Holm, Bonham Carter)

Some of these you know for such things as the music. Who can ever forget the music for Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet. Few people will EVER forget West Side Story on stage or the album by Bernstein.

Polanski's Macbeth had the music by The Third Ear Band, and one of the things here had Gryphon do their music for the show, though I really have no idea how it was used. Never heard about this detail.

        Was any of the Berlioz music used in the film mentioned here, I wonder?

       Your comments about film and classical music are quite interesting; with Berlioz's "Romeo and Juliet" A Dramatic Symphony for chorus, soloists and orchestra", it is typically Berlioz in that the musical score is grand and very large in structure and scope, and would definitely be a big challenge to make it work as background to a film. I guess it has to be noted that Berlioz wrote such music in the middle of the 19th Century, before film was a reality, so did not have that to work with and understand.  I must revisit Zeffirelli's film; I remember my Dad, who was an English Literature teacher, regularly showed the film to his students as part of study of the play, and my Dad's best friend taught film appreciation at the University of Toronto, and wish they were living now to share such things with. I must see that film, again.

Oh well, maybe the list is too long so it scares us away from commenting?

I have seen about two-thirds of your list, many of them are solid, but rather classic adaptations: Of course, the story is always very strong (it is Shakespeare!), but cinematographically there are not many that bring in a bit more originality. From the more "classic" ones (in a Hollywoodian sense) the Branagh and Zeffirelli films are excellent, Richardson, Polanski Almereyda very good, Welles is OK, but for me the more interesting ones (filmicly speaking) are Kurosawa's films, Derek Jarman and especially Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books (now, talking about cinematographic originality!).

Curious to see the Feng Xiaogang one, don't think I ever saw it...

Not on your list, but an adaptation that I like very much is Baz Luhrman's Romeo & Juliet.

I love that you’ve included The Black Adder.

Julie Taymor's version of The Tempest was quite entertaining  imo.

The BBC had a go at filming all of Shakespeares play in their published form and a couple of these particularly stand out.

John Cleese gives it his full Basil Fawlty as Petruchio in "The Taming of the Shrew", to great affect and Roger Daltry is marvellous playing twins in "The Comedy of Errors".

The BBC also filmed the full over 4 hours of "Hamlet". Although Zeffirrelli's Version with Mel Gibson is a much truncated version, it still manages to hit the main beats and I think it is a very accessible place to catch up with the bard. 

I also enjoyed both the 1944 version of "Henry V" with Olivier and the later Branagh version. It's fun for me to compare the presentation of the two. Olviers version cleves closer to the stage whilst Branaghs version is much more filmic.  I particularly like comparing the way the Chorus is presented in the two films.

My favorite filmed version of a Shakespeare play however is Polanskis "Macbeth, made even more poignant for me because it was the first film he made after the horrific murder of Sharon Tate. In the original play most of the violence is off stage but Polanski puts the blood up there on the screen for the audience to observe, along with the ghosts and visions. Nothing is left to the imagination.

Finally I would like to mention a recent British series called "Upstart Crow", written by Ben Elton, who also wrote for the "Blackadder" TV series.

It is an irreverant look at Shakespeare that strives to demystify his work, and although it could come of as somewhat impudent for a writer of Eltons stature to take on the bard, it is quite well observed and insightful about how the creative process works.

Oh, I would also like to give a shout out to "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" as well. 

Shakespeare also catered to the audiences attraction to blood and gore and superstition as well.

Concerning The Third Ear Band's soundtrack to "Macbeth" there is an interesting passage in the all to brief Wiki entry:

"The band composed original music for the film, by adding electronic music to hand drums, woodwinds and strings. Elements of music in India and the Middle East and jazz were also incorporated into the score."