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This collection of contemporary criticism highlights the extent to 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 a 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.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
General Editor's Preface
Introduction; R.Shaughnessy
Realising Shakespeare on Film; J.J.Jorgens
Laurence Olivier's Henry V; A.Davies
Shakespeare and Film: A Question of Perspective; C.Belsey
Radical Potentiality and Institutional Closure; G.Holderness
Symbolism in Shakespeare Film; J.Collick
Olivier, Hamlet and Freud; P.S.Donaldson
Branagh and the Prince, or a 'royal fellowship of death'; C.Breight
A Post-National European Cinema: A Consideration of Derek Jarman's The Tempest and Edward II; C.MacCabe
Katherina Bound; or Play(K)ating the Strictures of Everyday Life; B.Hodgdon
Drowning the Book: Prospero's Books and the Textual Shakespeare; D.Lanier
Further Reading
Notes on Contributors
Index.
About the author
ROBERT SHAUGHNESSY is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of the West of England, Bristol. His previous publications include Three Socialist Plays and Representing Shakespeare: England, History and the RSC.
