Shakespeare Films by Peter E.S. Babiak

Shakespeare Films by Peter E.S. Babiak

Author:Peter E.S. Babiak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2016-05-16T16:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER 7

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Kott, Brook, Richardson and Polanski

From the beginning of the Second World War to the late 1960s, films of Shakespeare’s plays in mainstream English language American and European cinema showed many consistent tendencies. Firstly, predominantly acclaimed films tended to be the work of an acclaimed “auteur” of Shakespearean films with connections to stage productions (Olivier, Welles and Zeffirelli were all acclaimed theatre or opera directors). Secondly, although strategies of adaptation occasionally differed (Olivier and Welles favored a strategy of juxtaposing the play against countertexts, whereas Zeffirelli favored a strategy of creating visual analogues for the thematic elements of the play) the works of each “auteur” were invariably focused on character, with a clearly identifiable “star-part.” The tragedy of Olivier’s Hamlet is a personal tragedy that elicits our sympathy but has social implications mainly within the diegesis of the film. Chimes at Midnight certainly examines the disparity between the “official” record, the “popular” record, and “personal” histories, but the film’s focus on the relationship between Hal and Falstaff directs us to perceive the film’s denouement as personally catastrophic to both of them but lacking in further social implications. Because of its association with the often tempestuous and very public relationship of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, The Taming of the Shrew engages its popular audience through a strategy of recognition, without making any claim regarding the treatment of women in our society.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s a wave of what might be considered to be nihilistic representations of Shakespeare in the cinema appeared. Heavily influenced by Kott’s Shakespeare: Our Contemporary, this group of films retained consistency with the tradition of connecting filmed adaptations of Shakespeare to the stage established by Olivier and Welles, but eschewed the tendency to focus around a “star-part” by employing actors who were not easily recognizable to popular film audiences. These films also depicted the tragic results of dramatic action as applicable to the entire social context represented by the diegesis of the film—as opposed to only the central character.

Few would disagree that King Lear is intended by Shakespeare to represent a nihilistic vision. Many critics agree that the play exemplifies several characteristics associated with a vision of the end of the world. Kott writes “The exposition of King Lear shows a world that is to be destroyed” (103), and summarizes the irretrievable devastation and loss depicted in the play: “The theme of King Lear is the decay and fall of the world … the world is not healed again … there is no young and resolute Fortinbras to ascend the throne of Denmark … there will be no coronation…. Everybody has died or been murdered … this is a morality play in which everyone will be destroyed: noble characters along with the base ones, the persecutors with the persecuted, the torturers with the tortured” (120–121).

The challenge faced by Peter Brook, in adapting King Lear to the cinema, was to dramatize the play in a manner that would engage the sensibilities of a mainstream North American or European cinema audience.



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