American Cinematographer - January 2001 - 138

speare's. "Old Will would have loved the

Shakespeare in the
Movies: From the

movies!" Welles exclaimed, and Brode

Silent Era to

explains why: "His theater... was an

Shakespeare in Love
by Douglas Brode
Oxford University Press
272 pps. Hardbound $25.00

active rather than

ISBN 0-19-513958-5

which is

passive experience,

[with] each viewer urged to collaborate
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Orson Welles always claimed
Shakespeare would have made a
great movie writer, and the director

that

created several films to illustrate his

position, including Macbeth, Othello and
Chimes at Midnight. But as Douglas
Brode points out in this book, "Shake¬
spearean cinema is the only subgenre of
narrative film that remains the center of

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ongoing debate - not only among
skeptical literary traditionalists, but even
an

those cineastes who make the movies
-

as

to whether it has a

right to exist."
Why would this be the case?

After all, the "Bard's own audiences
interested in

bloody good time,"
writes Brode. "His plays, filled with
murders, sexual transgressions, ghosts
were

and witches have

a

more

in

common

the latest blockbusters than

with

anything

on

the art-house circuit."
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a

hundred

years ago. Thomas Edison and George
Melies both adapted the Bard's works to

the
Don't miss out

as an

screen

in the

early years of the 20th

century, and Shakespeare's plays were
essential in

establishing the fledgling
which adapted
Borneo and Juliet (starring Paul Panzer
and Florence Lawrence) in 1908.

Vitagraph

In

company,

answer

to the

critics, Brode

suitability of Shakespeare
"Shakespeare and his
contemporaries reached into what
would eventually be called cinematic
territory," he says. "A film script is
composed of some 50 to 75 brief scenes,
with rapidly changing locations, and
argues for the
for cinema.

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Brode also presents some

inter¬
esting stories about landmark adapta¬
tions. Laurence Olivier's 1955
version of Bichard III
nationwide

on

was

television and

limited theatrical release the

screen

broadcast

opened in
day.

same

a then-enormous $500,000,
NBC and sponsor General Motors under¬

production costs," Brode
"They also created a possible
entry in the Guinness Book of World
Records: in a single afternoon, more
people saw this production than had
attended performances in the three and
most

wrote

writes.

a

half centuries since Bichard III

written. At that moment, the

was

phrase

'global village' became a reality."
Brode's book concludes with

a

chapter titled "As We Go to Press," in
seven Academy
Awards for Shakespeare in Love and

which he cites the

takes note of other recent variations

on

the Bard's work, such as A Midsummer

that's how the Bard constructed his

Nights Dream and 10 Things I Hate
"Shakespeare," notes Brode,
"is alive and well and living in Holly¬

works." Brode further contends that

wood."

Shakespeare's plays were really screen¬
plays "written, ironically, three centuries
before the birth of cinema."

Or fax:

tastes of modern times.

"By paying

Shakespeare also helped launch

Each 914"

In this book, each of Shake¬
speare's theatrical works is addressed in
individual chapters, presented in the
order in which the plays were written.
The film adaptations are also presented
chronologically within the corresponding
chapter, along with a discussion of
Shakespeare's life at the time he wrote
the particular work. Through this method
of organization, the author sheds light on
the Bard's life and world and how they
factored into each play, as well as how
the plays were adapted to the changing

Welles knew this, and he never

filmed any plays other

than Shake¬

About You.

■
American Cinematographer - January 2001

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 2001
