Shakespeare, The Movie

Shakespeare, The Movie brings together an impressive line-up of contributors to consider how Shakespeare has been adapted on film, TV, and video, and explores the impact of this popularization on the canonical status of Shakespeare. Taking a fresh look at the Bard an his place in the movies, Shakespeare, The Movie includes a selection of what is presently available in filmic format to the Shakespeare student or scholar, ranging across BBC television productions, filmed theatre productions, and full screen adaptations by Kenneth Branagh and Franco Zeffirelli. Films discussed include: * Amy Heckerling's Clueless * Gus van Sant's My Own Private Idaho * Branagh's Henry V * Baz Luhrman's William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet * John McTiernan's Last Action Hero * Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books * Zeffirelli's Hamlet.

Richard Burt is Associate Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts. Lynda Boose is Professor of English and Women's Studies at Dartmouth College.

Introduction - Shakespeare, the movie, Lynda E. Boose and Richard Burt; totally clueless? - Shakespeare goes Hollywood in the 1990s, Lynda E. Boose and Richard Burt; race-ing Othello, re-engendering white out, Barbara Hodgon; war is mud - Branagh's "Dirty Harry V" and the types of political ambiguity. Donald K. Hedrick; top of the world, ma - Richard III and cinematic convention, - James Loehlin; popularizing Shakespeare - the artistry of France Zeffirelli, Robert Hapgood; Shakespeare wallah and colonial specularity, Valerie Wayne; poetry in motion - animating Shakespeare, Laurie E. Osborne; when Peter met Orson - the 1953 CBS "King Lear", Tony Howard; in search of nothing - mapping Lear, Kenneth S. Rothwell; a shrew for the times, Diana E. Henderson; Shakespeare in the age of post-mechanical reproduction - sexual and electronic magic in "Prospero's Books", Peter S. Donaldson; grossly gaping viewers and Jonathan Miller's "Othello", Lynda E. Boose; "Age Cannot Wither Him" - Warren Beatty's "Bugsy" as Hollywood Cleopatra, Katherine Eggert; Asta Nielsen and the mystery of "Hamlet", Ann Thompson; the family tree motel - subliming Shakespeare in "My Own Private Idaho", Sue Wiseman; the love that dare not speak Shakespeare's name - new Shakesqueer cinema, Richard Burt.