A word regarding the BBC Television Shakespeare series: the entire canon was produced for television in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Shot on video, the plays usually have simple staging and very good actors. The individual programs are of varied quality, but some are quite good and all are worth viewing. This is the only way one can ever see some of the rarer plays. The texts are also more complete than is usual for movie versions.
There are also good Shakespeare audio-tapes. See Shakespeare on Audio.
This page is permanently "in progress". I frequently add new entries and revise old ones as I see new films and revisit previous ones.
I also keep Jane Austen film reviews on a separate page, as well as Classic Literature on film for everyone else (Dickens, Trollope, etc).
I added "Buy at..." links because I had gotten some email about where to find video versions. I hope to make millions on the referral fees.
Antony and Cleopatra. 1973. Directed by Charlton Heston. Starring Charlton Heston, Eric Porter. IMDB details.Lush production, well-executed and photographed. Much dramatic elaboration; the text and characters are shuffled and consolidated. For example, Antony makes his own way to the tomb. The party on Pompey's boat drops most of the lines.
Eric Porter is very effective as Enobarbus.
Buy at Amazon:
Antony and Cleopatra. 1974. Directed by Jon Scoffield. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Rather good made-for-TV version shot on video. Period costumes and bare stages. The Egyptian scences often have a soft ring around the lens; I don't know why.
The principals are all good: Richard Johnson and Janet Suzman, with Patrick Stewart as a boisterous Enobarbus. Young Ben Kingsley appears as Thyreus, the Roman messenger who is whipped.
At two and a half hours, they still drop quite a bit of text, including the passage on Pompey's galley when Menas suggests cutting the throats of the guests. And I didn't hear the lines
Eros, thou yet behold'st me?
[...] here I am Antony:
Yet cannot hold this visible shapewhich seem to me as eerie as the bit in A Midummer Night's Dream when the lovers awake in the woods, speak to the Prince and then turn to each other to ask
Are you sure
That we are awake? It seems to me
That yet we sleep, we dream.This is a puzzling play; an odd combination of farce and tragedy. Antony shows no sign of being the great general history and the other characters suppose him to be. That's part of the joke: like Hercules spinning with the Amazons or Achilles hiding among the women, Antony has lost all martial valor by hiding out in Egypt. And yet he has Thyreus whipped for "harping on what I am / Not what he knew I was."
Shakepeare also delves deep into sexual psychology: "she makes hungry / Where most she satisfies" is a persistent male fantasy.
Buy at Amazon: ·
Antony and Cleopatra. 1981. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Produced and directed by Jonathan Miller. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Strangely frivolous, dully comic version. No appealing characters. There is not much tragedy in Antony's decline, as he seems to have had no nobility to begin with.
I rather like Ian Charleson as Octavius: cold, hypocritical, the seeds of political greatness sprouting.
Jane Lapotaire (Cleopatra) played Charmian in the 1973 Heston version.
Buy at Amazon:
Antony and Cleopatra. 1983. Directed by Lawrence Carra. Starring Timothy Dalton and Lynn Redgrave. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Sadly, I am not able to review this title because the DVD copy was unwatchable. The picture was zoomed in to the top half of the frame and had severe distortions. This is certainly a manufacturing problem. I wrote to Kultur Video but received no reply.
Buy at Amazon: ·
As You Like It. 1936. Directed by Paul Czinner. Starring Laurence Olivier. Available on DVD. IMDB details.This could have been a decent version. The biggest flaw, obscuring all others, is the director's wife. She barely speaks English, shows little acting ability, and is nothing like Rosalind. I had not realized how much a German accent sounds like "hooting".
Much condensed. I particularly missed Jacques' judgment of the newlyweds.
Buy at Amazon: ·
As You Like It. 1978. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Produced by Cedric Messina. Directed by Basil Coleman. Starring Helen Mirren. Available on DVD. IMDB details.The first half is a bit painful to watch. Unusually for the series, the outdoor scenes are actually shot outdoors and don't look very good on video. It is also odd to see "stage" acting in the woods. The director simply has not "staged" the scenes very well.
The story actually picks up a bit after the women change clothes and arrive in the forest. The darker natural lighting helps. Hymen looks like he wandered in from some nearby party.
Buy at Amazon:
As You Like It. 1983. Directed by Sam Levene and Herb Roland. Stage direction by John Hirsch. This title does not appear in the IMDB database.Part of the "Shakespeare Collection" from the Stratford Festival in Ontario, a live production shot on video.
The first half is unaccountably grim, lightening up quite a bit in the forest. The costuming is an odd nineteenth century continental mixture.
Buy at Amazon:
The Comedy of Errors. 1983. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series.Produced by Shaun Sutton. Directed by James Cellan Jones. IMDB details.Relatively restrained production, some funny bits. The Mime Troupe used for background doesn't add much.
The Antipholi and the Dromios are played by one set of actors; the Dromios by rock star Roger Daltrey. The masters have distinct personalities but I can't tell the servants apart. Cyril Cusack and Wendy Hiller appear as the parents.
Adriana, Luciana and the Courtesan have impressive décolletage.
The Comedy of Errors. 1987. Directed by Gregory Mosher and Robert Woodruff. Starring the Flying Karamozov Brothers and other troupes. IMDB details.This is the vaudeville acrobatic "Live from Lincoln Center" production of fond memory. I don't know if it was broadcast more than once; a commercial version has never been available.
For such a boisterous and chaotic production, a surprising amount of the text is included. The bawdy content is just about right; more would be too much. Lots of people want to make slapstick stage comedies -- here are the pros who can do it well. Amazing juggling and tumbling.
Younger viewers may wonder who "Ollie" was; 1987 was the year of the Iran-Contra scandal.
Great fun. It ought to be available commercially, but one fellow who researched the matter said he couldn't even discover who owned the copyright.
Coriolanus. 1984. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Produced by Shaun Sutton. Directed by Elijah Moshinsky. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Alan Howard as Caius Marcius. Joss Ackland as Menenius.
Buy at Amazon:
Hamlet. 1948. Directed by and starring Laurence Olivier. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Compared to contemporary styles the performance seems quite restrained, but is very properly done. A nice balance between theater staging and cinema technique. Good gloomy sets. As usual the story falls apart in the second half.
The ghost is very eerie. It is startling to see Jean Simmons (Ophelia) in blonde braids. No Rosencrantz, Guildenstern or Fortinbras.
Buy at Amazon: · · ·
Hamlet. 1964. Directed by John Gielgud. Starring Richard Burton. Available on DVD. IMDB details.I had never heard of this before it appeared on DVD, a stage presentation filmed before a live audience. It is in black and white, perhaps because color would have required more light than was available in the theater. The effect is much more like being in a theater than watching a film, although it is a bit disconcerting because the angle and zoom do change. The actors project their voices and enunciate for the large space, also unusual in film. Almost bare staging and contemporary casual dress. The text is rather complete and the film is just over three hours long.
This is a remarkable effort, as close as you will come to seeing a top-notch Shakespearean stage production at home. As such I am inclined to consider it the benchmark Hamlet on film.
Richard Burton as Hamlet and Hume Cronyn as Polonius are the only vivid characters, and Cronyn without Burton is pretty dry. Together they have remarkable comic chemistry. This is the first time I have laughed out loud at the Hamlet-Polonius dialogues. Small comic bits are inserted throughout the play where I would not have expected them.
It is Burton's show. He gives fine readings of many passages. For example, this was freshly illuminated for me as an example of Hamlet's morbid sexual and religious imagination:
Ham. Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man pick'd out of ten thousand.
Pol. That's very true, my lord.
Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion- Have you a daughter?
Pol. I have, my lord.
Ham. Let her not walk i' th' sun. Conception is a blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to't.The problem with Burton is that he often seems overconcerned with the musicality of his voice to no good purpose. He shouts and punctuates strangely, sometimes with a very harsh edge. A stage production is always a work in progress and perhaps he would have done it differently the next night. A scene in the 1998 movie has an awful Hamlet played by a famous drunken Brit ("Jeremy Burtom") hamming it up for the American audience, a lampoon on Burton and perhaps on this very production.
The bit with the gravedigger is unusually jocular.
To me, Hamlet is one of the least enjoyable of the often-performed plays. I sometimes wonder if it doesn't consist of scraps from Shakespeare's wastebasket.
Buy at Amazon:
Hamlet. 1969. Directed by Tony Richardson. Starring Nicol Williamson. IMDB details.Modestly budgeted but with rich, dark color in costumes and sets. Good reading. A speedy performance, at under two hours. On that basis alone I would recommend it to those who want a first film Hamlet.
Oddly, Hamlet, Claudius and Gertrude all seem to be about the same age. No Fortinbras. The king prays briefly, but Hamlet is not there to watch him.
Nicol Williamson brings great focus and concentration to his Hamlet. His voice often goes unpleasantly nasal and reedy. His delivery is sometimes so rapid-fire as to be unintelligible.
Marianne Faithfull is a provacative Ophelia, in a rather good performance considering she was only a semi-pro actress. Her madness is effectively calm and coherent.
Anthony Hopkins is a disciplined Claudius, losing control only during "The Mousetrap". His court would be a jolly one if it weren't for Hamlet.
It was a joy to see Roger Livesey (First Player and Gravedigger) again. I enjoyed him in several Powell/Pressburger films of the 1940s. His voice had become quite hoarse by 1969.
Buy at Amazon:
Hamlet. 1976. Directed by Celestino Coronada. Starring Helen Mirren. IMDB details.I would define "art film" as: snippets and speeches from Hamlet fit into 65-minutes of weird-god-help-us video overlay and irritating sound. The quality of my tape was so poor that I couldn't make out some of the intended video effects.
Hearing that this was the famous "Naked Hamlet" I was hoping for naked Helen Mirren, but no such luck.
As I've said before, I have a hard time sitting through experimental presentations, but on the other hand there is undeniable value in hearing the words and seeing the relations in new and unexpected settings. Every such effort can provide new insights.
Buy at Amazon:
Hamlet. 1980. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Produced by Cedric Messina. Directed by Rodney Bennett. Starring Derek Jacobi, Patrick Stewart, Claire Bloom, Eric Porter, Lalla Ward. Available on DVD. IMDB details.A very strong production with excellent interpretations by the major characters. Derek Jacobi is a melancholy and self-pitying Hamlet, with a tendency to rave and ham it up. Claire Bloom's Gertrude is intelligent and rather mysterious.
Patrick Stewart is a tightly controlled Claudius. Watch his response at the end of the "Mousetrap". Usually the king is hysterical, near breakdown when he screams "Give me some light." Stewart delivers the line quietly, firmly, recognizing that Hamlet is his enemy.
The bedroom scene after Polonius is killed has so much shrieking that I couldn't follow the lines.
Buy at Amazon:
Hamlet. 1990. Directed by Franco Zeffirelli. Starring Mel Gibson, Alan Bates, Glen Close, Ian Holm, Helena Bonham Carter. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Finely photographed with an abbreviated text, somewhat scrambled in order. Hamlet's soliloquy comes after his blowup with Ophelia, for example. His first "mad" encounter with her is shown rather than described. No Fortinbras.
Elsinore is shown as more of a community than is usual; this is the Italian influence: their castles and courts are always filled with life.
Hamlet is a thinker who is reluctant to play his part in a revenge story. Mel Gibson is an action hero who has not demonstrated such reluctance. It is natural to wonder if he isn't miscast, but in reality he does an acceptable job, although better in the first half than in the second. It is very hard for a celebrity with such "star power" to fit into ensemble work, and difficult for the viewer to accept him.
A strong cast otherwise. Paul Scofield is almost hypnotic as the suffering Ghost. Glen Close's Gertrude has turned girlish in her second marriage. Ian Holm's Polonius is not such a fool as he is commonly played; his possessiveness towards Ophelia seems miserly. And are those chicken bones mad Ophelia uses for her "flowers"?
Buy at Amazon: · ·
Hamlet. 1990. Directed by and starring Kevin Kline. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Made for television and shot on video. Truncated text, but slowly paced nevertheless. The second half seems marginally better than the first, which is unusual.
Most of the cast are adequate at best, verging on poor. I don't want to be cruel to Kevin Kline, but both his directing and acting are dreadful. He uses an affected accent, cries rivers several times, and performs what might in other circumstances be a lampoon on bad Hamlets. There are truly shockingly bad moments in this presentation. The text itself damns them:
O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly (not to speak it profanely), that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.The coherence of the story is a problem at the best of times. The director and actors must somehow convey a continuity from moment to moment, linking the scenes by some thematic consideration: revenge, or love, or "remember me" or something. That is totally missing here. I've never seen a play so totally lose the object of the performance.
For a comparison of how good a made-for-tv Hamlet can be, see the Campbell Scott version done about ten years later.
Buy at Amazon: · ·
Hamlet. 1996. Directed by Kenneth Branagh. Starring Kenneth Branagh, Julie Christie, Derek Jacobi, Kate Winslet. IMDB details.A mighty attempt at a mighty long play. At four hours, it is certainly complete.
I hadn't previously imagined Hamlet and Ophelia rolling in bed in a soft-porn scene. Some segments are hugely overblown, such as the "swear by my sword" bit after Hamlet's first encounter with the ghost, as well as his meditation on seeing Fortinbras' army.
Much of the ghost's first speech is barely intelligible. In an interesting twist, Ophelia is forced to read the love letter aloud; the narration passes from her to Polonius to Hamlet and back to Polonius again. Fortinbras invades Denmark without any apparent opposition; what happened to those war preparations?
Derek Jacobi is a raging Uncle Claudius with a bit of the Prussian about him, probably due to the uniform and haircut. As always, his voice and diction are the clearest of the entire cast. It is interesting to compare this performance with that of the 1980 television version where he played Hamlet and Patrick Stewart was Claudius.
It is difficult to critique such a mammoth production; I've forgotten the beginning by the time we reach the end. Branagh is a muscular, vigorous Hamlet with not much of madness about him.
Buy at Amazon: · · ·
Hamlet. 2000. Directed by Michael Almereyda. Starring Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan, Bill Murray, Liev Schreiber. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Much abridged version more-or-less translated to the corporate towers of modern New York City. Similar in conception to Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, if less frenetic.
My first response to this sort of production is disorientation and embarassment when the text fits so poorly with modern morals and aesthetics. Spiritual shallowness is the characteristic of the age and much of Shakespeare is a lost language in modern performances. Ethan Hawke sometimes has a juvenile brooding intensity, but that's about it. Do we really believe his Hamlet struggles with the same issues and to the same degree as Shakespeare's?
On the other hand, placing the text in new (even if inappropriate) settings sometimes causes bits to stand out and be revealed in fresh ways. Bill Murray's Polonius is an eccentric interpretation, but I think a fine one. Polonius is too often a stock character taken off the shelf as needed.
Kyle MacLachlan's Claudius-as-vicious-businessman is decently done, but lacks the character transition which occurs after the king's failure at prayer. Laertes has a similar transition into dark villainy, but the text is less clear here. Ophelia's madness must be the agent, but I've never seen the mechanism shown.
Buy at Amazon: · ·
Hamlet. 2000. Directed by Campbell Scott. Starring Campbell Scott, Blair Brown and Roscoe Lee Browne. Available on DVD. IMDB details.I was skeptical at first (Hamlet's mourning-headband didn't help) but I quickly came to like very much this finely photographed version, shot on film, set in a warm, green Denmark (actually Long Island, I believe). This is a remarkably intelligible reading of the text and the film might be a good first Hamlet for students. It is set in the early twentieth century.
Generally restrained and sensitive performances. It is implied that the Ghost actually drives Hamlet mad. Campbell Scott's bit of Hamlet-as-drama-coach brings in some welcome comedy. Roscoe Lee Brown is an very dignified Polonius, unimaginative but not at all transparent. Ophelia's "St. Valentine's Day" song is remarkable.
Jamey Sheridan is the scariest Claudius I recall. His expression at Ophelia's "My brother shall hear of it" is priceless: a sort of "Of course. I knew that was coming."
Somewhat abbreviated text with key scenes out of order. Inexplicably, Gertrude's description of Ophelia's death is dropped. The vocabulary is updated in several spots, for example "drabbing" becomes "whoring", "Danskers" becomes "Danish", and "Switzers" becomes "soldiers".
I found the score distracting at first, but came to like the piano and drum combination.
Buy at Amazon: ·
Henry IV Part 1. 1979. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Produced by Cedric Messina. Directed by David Giles. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Strong performances by several leads:
Jon Finch plays King Henry in a very grand, theatrical style. This contrasts with the more naturalistic Eastcheap scenes. All the court scenes are very formal and Henry is properly a "Great Man" of history. This approach could easily have failed but Finch masters it. He is the only actor who continues from Richard II in the same series.
David Gwillim's Prince Hal is sharply intelligent and affable, but also exploitative and cruel. He is a strange mixture of frivolity and sincerity. He is going to be King and the common rules don't apply to him. I don't recall if the text supports it, but the exchange of glances during Hal's interview with his father suggests that the friction between them is due to Hal's belief that Henry does not have the crown legitimately and is responsible for the murder of Richard. Nonetheless he shows strong loyalty to his father, although his reforms come slowly.
Anthony Quayle is a great clownish Falstaff, always deferential to Hal. He makes the part look easy.
I would have picked someone other than Tim Pigott-Smith for Hotspur; he needs more of the warrior image. He is properly hot-headed but seems frantic and spindly. At his death he has so much blood in his mouth that his lines are hard to understand.
Buy at Amazon:
Henry IV Part 2. 1979. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Produced by Cedric Messina. Directed by David Giles. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Same cast as in Part 1. The best parts are the King's declining health and the Eastcheap scenes, as well as Falstaff's visit to the country justices. Anthony Quayle makes Falstaff more predatory, perhaps even sinister. When he exults at the King's death, saying "the laws of England are at my commandment", we realize that he is a fool.
Pistol is properly a lunatic. Watch the little curtsey Doll Tearsheet gives Hal; no one notices.
Some thoughts about Hal's rejection of Falstaff. How could it have been otherwise? Any new leader faces the same dilemma: he either advances his old cronies and is derided for having "favorites", or he leaves them and manages everyone's affairs as justly as possible and is called "faithless". Giving Falstaff a pension and promise of promotion given good behavior was the best Hal could do.
Buy at Amazon:
Henry V. 1945. Directed by and starring Laurence Olivier. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Imaginative production, ranging from the Globe playhouse to outdoor battle scenes. Some of the intermediate sets have a fairytale look which is incongruous in Shakespeare. The cavalry charge at Agincourt was copied, I think, in fifty years later.
The characterizations shift as much as the staging, from comic and very "theatrical" presentations, to realism and back again. Robert Newton is a memorable Pistol.
The Globe setting is great fun, with the audience cheering their favorites and lamenting for Falstaff.
Falstaff is inserted briefly, but the arrest of the traitors and bloodcurdling threats at Harfleur are skipped. No mention of hanging Bardolph.
Buy at Amazon: ·
Henry V. 1979. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Produced by Cedric Messina. Directed by David Giles. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Same cast as in Henry IV. David Gwillim is both more serious and less interesting as King than as Prince Hal. Is it possible to do both roles as the same character?
I found Fluellen's beating of Pistol hard to watch; it is a degrading scene.
The greater part of the terrorizing Harfleur speech ("Your naked infants spitted upon pikes") is omitted; even the Branagh version has more. The BBC series text is not as complete as I supposed.
A travelogue aside: I am told the actual city of Harfleur has now sunk beneath the waves.
Buy at Amazon:
Henry V. 1989. Directed by Kenneth Branagh. Starring Kenneth Branagh, Ian Holm, Judi Dench, Brian Blessed, Emma Thompson. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Gorgeous, very exciting production. Top-notch casting. Patrick Doyle score. This is the first time the Homeric nature of the invocation ("O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend / The brightest heaven of invention") was brought home to me.
Incidents from Henry IV are scrambled in and other liberties taken. The Archbishop's lecture on Salique Law is unexpectedly serious and menacing; obviously a loyalty test for the King's minions. All of the Eastcheap characters are played very soberly, particularly Pistol; in the text he is more of a clown and often seems a bit deranged. Robbie Coltrane is too young to be Falstaff.
The comical and verbose Fluellen (Ian Holm) is made serious and terse. In such a admiring portrait of Henry, there is no room for the author's wry comments on the nature of greatness:
Gower. [...] wherefore the King most worthily hath caus'd every soldier to cut his prisoner's throat. O, 'tis a gallant King!
Fluellen. Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What call you the town's name where Alexander the Pig was born?
Gower. Alexander the Great.
Fluellen. Why, I pray you, is not 'pig' great? The pig, or great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are all one reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations.I always find the wooing of Katherine to be a clumsy scene. When did the lively Prince Hal become a plain and simple soldier?
Finally, why kill Nell Quickley? It seems all the Eastcheap characters end badly in this play. They must have been favorites of the audience, but Shakespeare shows no mercy.
Buy at Amazon: · ·
Henry VI Part 1. 1983. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Directed by Jane Howell. Produced by Jonathan Miller. IMDB details.A lively production of an early, somewhat cumbersome play. Many familiar faces. The same director and cast do all three Henry VI parts and Richard III. There are some cast doublings in each part, which I found a bit confusing -- why was Vernon giving away Margaret of Anjou? Why was the Mayor of London creeping around a French fortress?
They use more comedy than I would have expected -- but what else can you do with all the "alarums and excursions"? The comedy helps the pacing. David Burke and Frank Middlemass are hilarious when jostling each other with their toy horses. Lots of sex comedy with the very keen Joan, adventuress. The scene where she pleads for her life (and her unborn child's?) is both comic and pathetic, turning in the end rather spooky.
Just as the play is somewhat jumbled, so is this production, with a range of tones. There are hints of a play-within-a-play motif. Talbot's death is very dramatic and bloody.
I'm always amazed -- and appreciative -- when seeing plays that get much good from text that seems dull on the page.
Henry VI Part 2. 1983. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Directed by Jane Howell. Produced by Jonathan Miller. IMDB details.A direct continuation of the previous play, with the same director and cast. Bloodier, less comic, with increasing sadism, and the set begins to show the wear and tear of time and battle. Susan Willis's book, , has a chapter on Jane Howell which gives interesting details on her approach to this cycle.
Many cast doublings again. David Burke is murdered as the Duke of Gloucester, but soon reappears as Dick the Butcher. Trevor Peacock, Talbot in the last play, becomes Jack Cade here. He displays demonically manical ravings during the scenes of destruction. This is Peacock's last appearance in the cycle.
In early Shakespeare histories the common folk are mostly fools and knaves. More development comes later, as with the denizens of Mistress Quickley's place. In later plays the Cade segments would be more evenly distributed.
We have a rich set of scheming villains here. The speeches are longer and better, but the plot is still fairly flat. Somerset and Margaret show a surprising amount of honest passion.
Michael Byrne plays many roles in this series. More recently he seems to appear as a sort of stock villain, but here shows great range. As the pirate leader is impressively sinister.
Many nice little touches, as with the expression on the country squire's face, having brought in Cade's head for his reward, wonders what he has gotten into.
Four severed heads, two kissing.
Henry VI Part 3. 1983. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Directed by Jane Howell. Produced by Jonathan Miller. IMDB details.
Henry VIII. 1979. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Produced by Cedric Messina. Directed by Kevin Billington. IMDB details.Well-presented version of a play usually described as "pomp and pageantry". The actors make the most of the limited story. Nice settings, large rooms and natural sound. Quite a few scenes are shot outdoors and the subdued lighting helps the video image.
Someone noted that Shakespeare's sympathies in this play are with those on their way down, and here the performers give us very nice interpretations: Julian Glover (Buckingham), Claire Bloom (Katharine), and even Timothy West as the unlovable Wolsey. John Stride as the king is certainly not on his way down, but plays a fierce Henry.
This late play has many references to older ones, particularly to Richard III, from early in the author's career. Richard executed Buckingham, and the son of Buckingham is killed by Richard's great-nephew.
The insertion of the episode involving the Archbishop of Canterbury towards the end makes no sense to me.
Julius Caesar. 1970. Directed by Stuart Burge. Starring Charlton Heston, Jason Robards, John Gielgud. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Respectable, colorful version, with the surprising flaw of Jason Robards' very wooden Brutus. Heston, wearing a bad wig, does well playing against type as the cynical Antony. Richard Johnson is an intense, emotional Cassius.
Buy at Amazon: ·
Julius Caesar. 1979. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Produced by Cedric Messina. Directed by Herbert Wise. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Solid production, good reading, quality sets and much more dynamic camera work than is usual for the series.
The assassination of Caesar seems to be the central moment in the literary representations of antiquity, serving the same purpose as the Incarnation in Christianity. History is divided into a "before" and an "after"; before the assassination we have the virtues of the old Roman Republic. After: the Empire, then decline and fall. Ironically, the assassins thought they were preventing tyranny and would be so revered in later ages. This production very strongly presents that day as a "hinge of history", with all its supernatural portents and intimations of large-scale forces of fate looming behind the scenes.
Buy at Amazon:
King John. 1899. From the Silent Shakespeare compilation. Directed by William Kennedy, Laurie Dickson, and Walter Pfeffer Dando. Available on DVD. IMDB details.This is just a 2-minute fragment of a very short production, but it is the first Shakespeare on film. It is the last scene of the play, when King John is dying:
There is so hot a summer in my bosom
That all my bowels crumble up to dust.
I am a scribbled form drawn with a pen
Upon a parchment, and against this fire
Do I shrink up.According to Kenneth S. Rothwell:
The search for the best available means to translate Shakespeare's words into moving images began in 1899 at the London studio of the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Pioneering film photographer William Kennedy Laurie Dickson recorded four scenes from Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's Her Majesty's Theatre stage production of King John. After being exhibited in 68mm "widescreen" at London's Palace Theatre and elsewhere, the four-minute movie disappeared until 1990, when a scene, which depicted the poisoning of the king in the orchard at Swinstead Abbey (Act V, scene 7), turned up in Amsterdam's Nederlands Filmmuseum. In the remarkably clear British Film Institute restored print, Sir Herbert as the dying monarch writhes, squirms, and twists in agony while three anxious courtiers look on.As cinema King John achieved little more than did the primitive "actualities" (i.e., brief footage of parading soldiers and umbrella dancers) being shown between the live acts in London and New York vaudeville houses. Like all turn-of-the-century movies, the Shakespeare film still hadn't reached the stage of telling a story in pictures.
One of the "courtiers" is actually Prince Henry, played by Dora Senior (or Julia Neilson, according to the IMDB).
The stage version must have been a famous production; an annotated Shakespeare by A.L. Rowse has several photos and a drawing of Sir Herbert, perhaps from this very scene.
Buy at Amazon: ·
King Lear. 1910. From the Silent Shakespeare compilation. Directed by Gerolamo Lo Savio. Available on DVD. IMDB details.From Italy, 16 minutes long, filmed on stage and outdoors. Much of the film is hand-tinted, giving it a pastel colorized look reminiscent of religious "chromos".
Lear vividly pantomimes his cursing of Goneril. No storm is provided, but the actors pretend they have one. In a long inserted bit, Lear compares his daughters' hearts to a stone he picks up on the road. His reunion with Cordelia is touching and her death is properly done, although Lear drags her rather than carrying her. Gloucester and his sons do not appear at all.
Buy at Amazon: ·
King Lear. 1971. Directed by Peter Brook. Starring Paul Scofield. IMDB details.A very dour production filmed in wintry Denmark, alternately realistic and stylized. The plot is trimmed and a bit scrambled. Extraordinary black-and-white imagery, framing, and texture.
It begins inauspiciously with almost somnolent performances. Lear's throne seems to be a hollow tree and he wears a robe that makes him look like a hunchbacked bear. But the film opens up and becomes quite gripping. The slow, sober presentation gives great concentration to the text (as much as remains). Scofield seems to have gone very deeply into the role. Lear's passage "I will have such revenges on you both", usually done as a blustering rant, is here delivered with chilling calm.
I am always impressed at how consistently sinister Patrick Magee (Cornwall) is in all his roles.
There is too much charging about on the plains to no purpose. The camera work sometimes drifts into a too-clever "art-film" look, with a floating, drifting perspective later used in many TV commercials.
I've never understood those who say the play has nothing but despair. If Lear and Cordelia had not been reconciled, if Gloucester and Edgar had not been reconciled, if Lear had not achieved some self-knowledge, if Albany had not switched sides, if Kent had not stayed true and courageous, if Edmund had not had second thoughts before he died: that would have been a dark play.
Buy at Amazon:
King Lear. 1974. Produced by Joseph Papp. Directed by Edwin Sherin. Starring James Earl Jones and Raul Julia. Available on DVD. IMDB details.A live stage production shot outdoors at night. Although an open-air performance does not allow the subtleties of interpretation of a smaller one, this effort works pretty well. The sound is particularly good, given the circumstances. The text is mostly there.
As Lear, James Earl Jones has both blustering rages and delicate fits of madness. I particularly enjoyed the "Down from the waist they are Centaurs" passage, which is usually bitter and obscene, but which here becomes a pathetically comic bit. He seems angry with Cordelia from the outset, a setup I don't recall seeing before.
Raul Julia is lethally handsome and suave as Edmund. I'm afraid Paul Sorvino was a poor choice for Gloucester; his delivery is terribly flat and all his lines are ruined. We could have used a livelier Cordelia, also.
For no reason that I can see, Edmund and Edgar fight blindfolded.
Buy at Amazon: · ·
King Lear. 1976. Starring Patrick Magee. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Fairly dull made-for-TV production, shot on video. Truncated text, dropping many of the best passages.
Magee's strong face and presence are a handicap here; he doesn't show much flexibility, although he gets better as he grows more mad. Honestly, though, his Lear is not much different mad than when sane. Funnier when mad. The text has a good amount of comedy in the "hovel" trial scene after the storm.
The daughters and Cornwall should be much more sinister than shown here.
Buy at Amazon: ·
King Lear. 1982. From the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Directed by Jonathan Miller. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Excellent production, strong cast, with a leisurely pace that gives a clear interpretation of the rather complete text. The visual composition is spare but sometimes striking; it makes me wish the series had been done on film instead of video. Elizabethan costumes.
Most of the cast give relatively restrained performances. The exceptions are Michael Hordern as Lear and Frank Middlemass as the Fool who both have ample opportunity to shout and bluster. And, of course, Anton Lesser who, as Edgar and Poor Mad Tom, can't help it. As always, the yelling scenes decrease intelligibility. The storm is always a problem.
Lear has a Fool of his own age. Both spit quite a bit when ranting. Hordern seems to intentionally drain some of the pathos and romance from his role, mocking the sensitivity sometimes given to the king's madness. Michael Kitchen gives a slyly comic Edmund, dapper and patronizing. When reading the play I imagine Cordelia as more of a warrior queen upon her return, but here, as usual, she is presented as meek.
Kent is always a favorite role, an "interesting" hero, rough and admirable, and John Shrapnel is strong in it.
Small bits: In the text, the word "nothing" has a loaded meaning in the first third, but which is seldom noticed in performances I've seen. They cover it here. And watch how the Fool is honestly shocked by Lear's cursing of Goneril. Finally, in a seldom-seen bit at the beginning of Act II, Edmund speaks briefly with "Curan, a Courtier" (his only appearance) who does a very decent "Edmund" imitation!
Buy at Amazon:
King Lear. 1984. Produced by David Plowright. Directed by Michael Elliott. Starring Laurence Olivier, John Hurt, Diana Rigg, Leo McKern, Colin Blakely. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Made for television, shot on video with simple staging. I like Leo McKern and Colin Blakely as Gloucester and Kent very much. Both Edmund and Edgar are played too "light". John Hurt's Fool seems on the verge of a breakdown. Diana Rigg relishes the role of a villainous daughter ("Let him smell his way to Dover").
Olivier's is the hardest performance to critique. Lear is supposed to possess both authority and frailty. Here he has the latter in abundance but little of the former; during the first half it is hard to know if we are seeing Lear or rather Olivier playing some version of his aged self. Undoubtedly there is power and pathos in his plea "Let me not be mad."
When he appears in Act IV ("fantastically dressed with wild flowers") it seems like a new performance. His knowing ravings are wonderful, as when the madman comforts the blind man:
If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes.
I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloucester.The violence done to Gloucester suggests the inefficacy of Good. Now and then a new breed emerges and the old guard is unprepared for the extreme measures the new crew will use.
Buy at Amazon: ·
King Lear. 1997. Directed by Richard Eyre. Starring Ian Holm. IMDB details.A very good reading by a strong cast. Made for television, simple staging and costumes. Somewhat abbreviated text.
Ian Holm is a fiercely vigorous Lear. The older daughters show how difficult he is to deal with, and how they have cause to be angry with him, without softening their calculated cruelty. Barbara Flynn (Goneril) is particularly hurt by his curses. Amanda Redman (Regan) projects a dangerous sexual heat which is clear in the text but sometimes not shown in performance.
I had imagined Gloucester's sin to be vulgarity and a callous indifference to the feelings of Edmund. Timothy West plays him a bit differently, and quite well: as having quiet contempt for his son, not imagining this will ever reflect back on him. Gloucester retains his diginity even when blind and I think because of this, and because some of his dialogue with Edgar is omitted, that his turn-around and reconcilliation are not clearly shown. Similarly, Edmund's regrets when dying are skipped over rather quickly.
Michael Bryant communicates the Fool's jibes more effectively than I recall seeing before. An idea: since he and Kent are both trying to protect Lear, would it work to have the Fool recognize the disguised Kent? Could Gloucester be included in that little conspiracy, just as he is in the great one of trying to save the King?
In the storm Lear says he will pray, but this is the first time I have seen the following lines ("Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are") actually delivered as prayer.
I missed Edmund's soliloquy:
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical pre-dominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc'd obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whore-master man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's Tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. Fut! I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.Buy at Amazon: ·
Love's Labour's Lost. 2000. Directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Not much original text survives in this 1930s-style zany musical. Because of its dense text, the complete play probably can't be done as a feature film. It's a bright, if not completely successful, experiment.
I don't mind the sometimes amateurish singing and dancing, or the choice of music, or changing Holofernes' sex. I enjoy films from the 1930s and am happy to see the genre recreated. I think Branagh could have worked on the comic elements a bit more.
His own performance is similar to his Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. (Of course, there are parallels between Berowne/Rosaline and Benedick/Beatrice). The camera isolates on him when it is time to recite a bit of Real Shakespeare.
Alicia Silverstone's interpretation of a modern silly Princess is just as I would have wanted it, but for some reason doesn't quite work. Her mobile face reminds me of Lucille Ball.
Tacking on the happy reunion at the end contradicts the title. Still, as a romantic comedy vehicle, it serves pretty well.
* * *
After several more viewings, I find this becoming one of my favorite films. My former reservations fade away. It's not so much the Shakespeare content (although that is always intriguing) that I enjoy, as much as the amazing sub-creation of a 1930s romantic fantasy. A whole little world, delightfully realized.
However: I don't need to hear "There's No Business Like Show Business" again -- ever.
Buy at Amazon: ·