Shakespeare on Film : Contemporary Critical Essays

This collection of contemporary criticism highlights the ways in which recent discussion of Shakespeare on film has drawn upon the theoretical perspectives of Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis and post-structuralism, generating a radical reappraisal of Shakespearean cinema which has itself experienced a revival in the last decade. Ranging widely across the canon of Shakespeare films, from Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream to Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books, the essays address the cultural politics of film adaptation from a variety of angles, offering readings of individual films- Hamlet, Henry V, The Tempest --but also raising larger questions about the nature, purpose and future direction of Shakespearean cinema.

Robert Shaughnessy is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of the West of England.

Introduction--Robert Shaughnessy * Realizing Shakespeare on Film--Jack J. Jorgens * Laurence Olivier's Henry V --Anthony Davies * Shakespeare and Film: A Question of Perspective--Catherine Belsey * Radical Potentiality and Institutional Closure--Graham Holderness * Symbolism in Shakespeare Film--John Collick * Olivier, Hamlet, and Freud--Peter S. Donaldson * Branagh and the Prince, or a "royal fellowship of death"--Curtis Breight * A Post-National European Cinema: A Consideration of Derek Jarman's The Tempest and Edward II --Colin Maccabe * Katherina Bound; or, Play(K)ating the Strictures of Everyday Life--Barbara Hodgdon * Drowning the Book: Prospero's Books and the Textual Shakespeare--Douglas Lanier * Further Reading * Index
Introduction--Robert Shaughnessy * Realizing Shakespeare on Film--Jack J. Jorgens * Laurence Olivier's Henry V --Anthony Davies * Shakespeare and Film: A Question of Perspective--Catherine Belsey * Radical Potentiality and Institutional Closure--Graham Holderness * Symbolism in Shakespeare Film--John Collick * Olivier, Hamlet, and Freud--Peter S. Donaldson * Branagh and the Prince, or a "royal fellowship of death"--Curtis Breight * A Post-National European Cinema: A Consideration of Derek Jarman's The Tempest and Edward II --Colin Maccabe * Katherina Bound; or, Play(K)ating the Strictures of Everyday Life--Barbara Hodgdon * Drowning the Book: Prospero's Books and the Textual Shakespeare--Douglas Lanier * Further Reading * Index