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Spectacular Shakespeare includes an introduction, nine essays, and an afterword that all address the spectacle of Shakespeare in recent Hollywood films. The essays approach the Shakespeare-as-star phenomenon from various perspectives, some applauding the popularization of the Bard, others critically questioning the appropriation of Shakespeare in contemporary mass culture.
This volume addresses the economy of the spectacular in and around Shakespeare’s plays, both in early modern England and in late-twentieth/twenty-first-century adaptations and appropriations. Apart from addressing issues such as (im)plausibility, tours de force arousing amazement, and excess for the sake of entertainment, it raises the question of intentionality—what is behind the spectacular? Is there always a manipulative purpose? How far-reaching are the political and ideological stakes? The contributors to this volume investigate a broad spectrum of particular phenomena: the spectacular sound effects and pyrotechnics displayed for the opening of the Globe theatre with Julius Caesar on performance; George Gascoigne’s lavish 1575 pageant commissioned by the Earl of Leicester for the queen at Kenilworth (The Princely Pleasures); the relationship between the spectacular and scientific discoveries, as well as their dialectics of appropriation; the impact of Mannerist art on The Winter’s Tale; Coriolanus’ resistance to ostentation and political shows; the anti-spectacular counter-current running through Timon of Athens; Julia Pascal’s innovative 2007 stage production of The Merchant of Venice; apocalyptic screen adaptations of turn-of-the-century Jacobean tragedies, and Richard III’s potential to be graphically interpreted in 2008 as political satire and as a danse macabre.
Impressive Shakespeare reassesses Shakespeare’s relationship with "print culture" in light of his plays’ engagement with the language and material culture of three interrelated "impressing technologies": wax sealing, coining, and typographic printing. It analyses the material and rhetorical forms through which drama was thought to "imprint" early modern audiences and readers with ideas, morals and memories, and—looking to our own cultural moment—shows how Shakespeare has been historically constructed as an "impressive" dramatist. Through material readings of four plays—Coriolanus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Measure for Measure and The Winter’s Tale—Harry Newman argues that Shakespeare deploys the imprint as a self-reflexive trope in order to advertise the value of his plays to audiences and readers, and that in turn the language of impression has shaped, and continues to shape, Shakespeare’s critical afterlife. The book pushes the boundaries of what we understand by "print culture", and challenges assumptions about the emergence of concepts now central to Shakespeare’s perceived canonical value, such as penetrating characterisation, poetic transformation, and literary fatherhood. Harry Newman’s suggestive analysis of techniques and tropes of sealing, coining and printing produces a revelatory account of Shakespearean creative poetics. It’s sustainedly startling in its rereading of familiar lines - but the chapter I found most original is on Measure for Measure: Newman is the first critic to attempt to interpret the play’s authorial status as part of its own thematic and linguistic interrogation of illegitimacy and counterfeiting. He makes authorship matter in a literary and creative, rather than a quantitative and statistical, sense. Impressive Shakespeare is a brilliant scholarly debut. - Emma Smith Editor, Shakespeare Survey Professor of Shakespeare Studies, Hertford College, Oxford
Elizabethan London was a vibrant, growing city and theater, especially that of William Shakespeare, played a major role in its lively culture. There was even a different play every day of the week Here's your ticket to the Globe, the legendary 20-sided building where Shakespeare's plays were staged. Go backstage to discover how the theater was run, who chose the actors, how big an audience it could hold, and why it was build on the banks of the Thames. Extraordinary illustrations give a dramatic look at life and art in the sixteenth century. "
Michael Anderegg investigates how Shakespeare films constitute an exciting & ever-changing film genre. He looks closely at films by Olivier, Welles, & Branagh, as well as postmodern Shakespeares & multiple adaptations over the years of 'Romeo and Juliet'.
The past several years have witnessed a group of experiments in 'staging' Shakespeare on film. This book introduces and applies the analytic techniques and language that are required to make sense of this wave. It maps a vocabulary for interpreting Shakespeare film; addresses script-to-screen questions about authority and performativity; and more.
When adapting Shakespeare's comedies, cinema and television have to address the differences and incompatibilities between early modern gender constructs and contemporary cultural, social, and political contexts. Screening Gender in Shakespeare’s Comedies: Film and Television Adaptations in the Twenty-First Century analyzes methods employed by cinema and television in approaching those aspects of Shakespeare's comedies, indicating a range of ways in which adaptations made in the twenty-first century approach the problems of cultural and social normativity, gender politics, stereotypes of femininity and masculinity, the dynamic of power relations between men and women, and social roles of men and women. This book discusses both mainstream cinematic productions, such as Michael Radford's The Merchant of Venice or Julie Taymor's The Tempest, and more low-key adaptations, such as Kenneth Branagh's As You Like It and Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing, as well as the three comedies of BBC ShakespeaRe-Told miniseries: Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. This book examines how the analyzed films deal with elements of Shakespeare's comedies that appear subversive, challenging, or offensive to today's culture, and how they interpret or update gender issues to reconcile Shakespeare with contemporary cultural norms. By exploring tensions and negotiations between early modern and present-day gender politics, the book defines the prevailing attitudes of recent adaptations in relation to those issues, and identifies the most popular strategies of accommodating early modern constructs for contemporary audiences.
Authorizing Shakespeare on Film and Television examines recent film and television transformations of William Shakespeare's drama by focusing on the ways in which modern directors acknowledge and respond to the perceived authority of Shakespeare as author, text, cultural icon, theatrical tradition, and academic institution. This study explores two central questions. First, what efforts do directors make to justify their adaptations and assert an interpretive authority of their own? Second, how do those self-authorizing gestures impact upon the construction of gender, class, and ethnic identity within the filmed adaptations of Shakespeare's plays? The chosen films and television series considered take a wide range of approaches to the adaptative process - some faithfully preserve the words of Shakespeare; others jettison the Early Modern language in favor of contemporary idiom; some recreate the geographic and historical specificity of the original plays, and others transplant the plot to fresh settings. The wealth of extra-textual material now available with film and television distribution and the numerous website tie-ins and interviews offer the critic a mine of material for accessing the ways in which directors perceive the looming Shakespearean shadow and justify their projects. Authorizing Shakespeare on Film and Television places these directorial claims alongside the film and television plotting and aesthetic to investigate how such authorizing gestures shape the presentation of gender, class, and ethnicity.
Providing up-to-date coverage of screen versions of Romeo and Juliet, this book encompasses a broad range of media from canonical movies to web series. The chapters, written by internationally recognized scholars, revisit well-known films and TV productions, while also exploring free retellings and introducing appropriations from around the globe.