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.

I intentionally left behind many other things, like India and some other Far East countries did a lot of things that were based on some Shakespeare materials, but the quantity was so big that I could not keep up, and I have to admit that I did not see very many of them. Probably a minimum amount. I wanted to do them some justice since Shakespeare is appreciated much further than we know, but when it comes to productions of it, specially in film, the quantity is less, and it seems that most of the work done was done for TV. England also had a lot of it done for TV, which I did not include because most of it never even made it to the States.

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

Hi,

Not that I am aware of, and will have to look at further. There were many productions of R&J and it is possible that the music might have been used at some point, although I would think that its use was not as huge as we would think, since in a film, the music has to augment the film, and in this case, this musical piece would be very difficult to match up to the screen and its words, as the moments in the story move along.

Film is frustrating this way ... no one will be able to use "classical" music very well (it will always be pieces and parts!!!), because it has a "story" in its own right and via the composition, and its visual nature would clash strongly with that of the script/play which is (probably) better followed in the film comparatively speaking. For examples, it would be likely that the Symphony would concentrate on the lovers mostly and not offer a lot of moments on the political/social nature of the rest of the story, unless you know it well and you might associate some instruments and parts to this or that, which would be rather eccentric I imagine.

I would have liked to see that if it was done. A heck of a challenge to make that work right I bet!

Two examples, mentioned above, the use of The Third Ear Band is in a lot of spots in Polanski's Macbeth and it is well done. However, try to fit Gryphon's piece to the play, and all I can think is either pre-show music or half time entertainment while every one gets a drink and some food! Or even at the end, when people are leaving and no one cares about the music ... it's very scary to match music to stories that are so well known as to almost prohibit the combination. Even Werner Herzog using some classical music could not do it, even if when done in Nosferatu, and all of a sudden you know that he was able to match the visual to Popol Vuh a lot better than he was able to match well known music.

But Shakespeare is very tough on music and that Zeffirelli's R&J had some wonderful moments was more about the filming style making it such an emotional story that helped us all love it even more. The bizarre thing? Pretty much all of Shakespeare plays had some music in them and around them during the performance, at the Globe, to keep the folks interested, and to make sure that they could keep the audience instead of losing it and they start throwing garbage on the stage. Time for a break and some fun songs about naughty this and that ...???

       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.

I guess that not many of these films made their way around ... sorry to see that no one else has anything to say about them. Some of them were very nice and far out!

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.

Lots I love in the list (and I love Black Adder), but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a very special one to me.  "Gobble my Stoppard" (Chris Morris - Blue Jam).

I didn't comment on Titus, the list is so long, but I adored that film.  Its a pretty unique adaptation I would say. It has been one of my very favourite films.

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

More Anthony Hopkins as Titus Andronicus.

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. 

Hi,

Ohhh please ... drag me on this all you want!

Hugh Manatee wrote: ... 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. ...

Which also had music from THE THIRD EAR BAND, one of the early "Harvest" breakfast listing. Excellent stuff but it is so different and adds so much to the film.

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

Probably one of my favorite writers, and his ability and talent is incredible. Remember that he also wrote (or co-wrote not sure) SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, which is also a very nice treat for Shakespeare stories although it has the one thing that is weird for the folks that visited THE GLOBE. There were not that many "dignitaries" in those shows, as most of it was supported by the booze and everyone else ... which is the main reason why Willie resorts to so many cheap jokes, etc, etc ... in fact Peter Brook, has actually said that many times, Willie is downright filthy! In this sense, Willie has not been done properly, possibly with the exception of Polanski's version which I have to see again, as I can not remember as much about it as I would like!

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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_India" rel="nofollow - m usic in India and the Middle East and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz" rel="nofollow - j azz were also incorporated into the score."

Hi,

I finally got the DVD of "Chimes at Midnight" and it is fantastic. I updated my review of it, and the one thing that must be said .... the less Shakespeare you know the better the story is ... but the ending of that film, the last 20 or 30 minutes, is just spectacular ... and sad, in so many ways, but something that Shakespeare did in a lot of his own stories ... bring them all to the end ... nothing left! AND, it was brilliantly shot and it's hard to not enjoy the whole thing.

But, I had one of those flashes of weirdness ... this would have been the killing of the "real" Shakespeare, into the hands of the academic folks that have put all the richer folks at the Globe also getting drunk and picking at the roses of the maids and whores. This story, of course, is never "seen", but most films, specially English, always have these folks in the "audience" of the theater, so we know who's in charge!

I think, and there are hints, that  Tom Stoppard wanted to deal with this more in his film, but it would have taken too much away from the story ... like it was not a family thing, but a gang thing, so to speak, and the dignitaries were mere spectators just standing there looking out of place dressed like clowns. And I am not convinced that all the actors were paid, any more than just a couple of beers and some food, or we would have known some more actors by name and ability, which we seem not to have, which gives the idea of the whole thing suggesting that William Shakespeare is actually a bunch of writers, not one person (The Shakespeare Conspiracy with Sir Derek Jacobi) ... which now changes a lot of things, and giving the aristocracy a level and standing, even as just audience members as if they were cops at the door!

Hi,

Thx ... gonna look for this one.

But remember, if you catch CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT. The less you know about Shakespeare and the stories, the better this film is. Get the DVD that has the extra stuff on it. Some really nice bits!

Aki Kaurismäki's " https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093139/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0" rel="nofollow - Hamlet Goes Business " is great fun!

(I was also going to mention " https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114733/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0" rel="nofollow - Tromeo & Juliet " but maybe I won't.)