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Shakespeare: From Page to Stage; Screenplay to Screen

Chapter FiveBevington, Welsh and Greenwood

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CHOICE

Choice is a crucial term for theatre and film artists

a. A script or screenplay is only a blueprint for a production

b. Many commentators feel that Shakespeare anticipated

certain cinematic techniques...quick cuts...interior monologues, etc.



The Verbal and the Visual

The stage is basically a verbal medium while film is visual.

Onstage, the script happens now and is fresh each time the script is performed WHEREAS in a screenplay, there is a fixed time both in the making and of the finished product.

Onstage, the number of performers is limited and in a film that number is unlimited.

In a play the audience is integral to the occasion as a group while the film audience is comprised of individuals. (See text p. 49)



Clearly, film directors and stage directors work in very different media and Shakespeare’s directors must take these differences intoaccount when bringing his works to life



Viewers should not judge the success of a film on its fidelity to the play. For example, the opening shots of the countryside in Tuscanyin Branagh’s MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING are good examples ofphotographic images substituting for verbal ones.



Because film is more realistic, the poetic description of Ophelia’s drowning in HAMLET seems inappropriate for film.



Actors were performing before playwrights, directors and designers...Strictly speaking, an actor is one who performs or impersonates. The first actors evolved from priests or shamans...

According to Aristotle’s POETICS, Humans are the most imitative of living creatures.

Stage Artists at WorkThe Actors



According to JAQUES : “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts.” AS YOU LIKE IT II.7 (138-141)



Approaches to ActingTraditionally actors approach their craft in two broad categories

External (vocal and physical)Internal (psychological)

Best of all for our purposes are INTEGRATED actors accomplished at both approaches



Actors approach the text from four directions…

• Script or the words on the page• The Context of the words• Subtext is what the words imply• Intention is the reason a character

must say those lines



THE DIRECTORHistorically, DIRECTORS are among the last artists to enter the theatre. Today they are a potent force in the shaping of the production.

Still, theatre directors do

not necessarily enjoy the absolute power of film

directors.



Directors wear many hats but have four primary tasks…

1. Devise the directorial approach and develop a CONCEPT

2. Coordinating the artist’s contributions

3. Creating an aesthetic experience4. Helping the actors



FOUR CATEGORIES OF CONCEPTS FOR SHAKESPEARE

Historically - Zeffirelli's ROMEO AND JULIET (1968)



Modern dress John Gielgud’s HAMLET with Richard Burton (1963)



Alternate historical period Kenneth Branagh’s MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (1993)



Universal timeless

Julie Taymor’s TITUS (1999)



The designers

Theatre is a “Seeing Place” implying that the visual

dimension is an important part of the audience’s experience.



Designer’s challenge…

• be consistent with directorial concept

• support the work of the actors

• help establish the degree of reality or theatricality

• provide audience with relevant information



Designer’s tools…

• Research• Plans, models, drawings• Renderings, sketches, swatches• Color and texture



FILM ARTISTS AT WORK 1. Process of film-making is more complex2. Preproduction and story boards3. Shooting4. Post-production: Editing



Director’s responsibility in film is for emphasis, quality and impact.

Olivier’s HAMLET (1948)



Approaches to Shakespeare on film.

THEATRICAL MODE – Olivier’s HENRY V



Realistic Mode



Filmic Mode

Orson Welle’s OTHELLO (1961)



THE SCREENWRITERSome adaptations are conservative as in the works of KennethBranagh and Lawrence Olivier.



Or radical like Peter Greenaway

Greenaway’s PROSPERO’S BOOKS (1991)



The ActorsFilms tend to create popular stars and celebrities…

1929



1935



The Film DirectorThe film director is in charge, not Shakespeare. Thus the variety of adaptations from Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books and Orson Welle’s Falstaff (Chimes at Midnight).



The cinematographerHe holds the camera or supervises those who do, the chief artist in charge of both the camera and the lighting. Some great collaborations in film history including Akira Kurosawa and Asakazu Nakai -or- IngmarBergman and Sven Nykvist

Cinematic conventions require a variety of shotsClose-up

Language may be deleted in favor of facial expression

Characters are more significant up closeAttention can be shifted from main charactersCan turn soliloquy into voice-over

Long shots (deep focus) covers big actions and landscapesMedium shots



Film Design Art directors shoot on location or build sets

COMPOSERS can enhance mood or build suspense

Lighting designers make a film feel coherent visually

Special effects allow countless possibilities



COSTUMERS work is more lavish and detailed than onstage.



Editing is painstaking and time-consuming. Editors work

closely with directors. WAR HORSE was the first

movie that Spielberg and his editor “cut” digitally.



Close-up: SILENT SHAKESPEARE

The first talkie of a Shakespeare was 1929’s TAMING OF THE SHREW with Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford The first film of a Shakespeare film was Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s 80-second film of the death of KING JOHN Earliest silent films were shorts since the materials were expensive and the medium was new


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Eu6wtlPS4


In 1900, Sara Bernhardt was filmed playing HAMLET. This and earlier films were single camera films.



From 1908-1912, Vitagraph produced a series of 15-minute one-reel silent films including ROMEO AND JULIET, JULIUS CAESAR and KING LEAR. In 1916 Theda Bara did an American ROMEO AND JULIET.



First feature-length Shakespeare film was HAMLET (1913) which ran for 59 minutes and starred Sir Johnston Forbes-

Robertson


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQJWMC2K-BI


A five-reel RICHARD III starring Frederick B. Warde was made in 1912

A 1922 German OTHELLO was

shot by Dimitiri Buchowetzki


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4dG8cGbX9g


PETER BROOK, The ConjurerSee text, pages 66-67

Arguably the most significant stage director of latter 20th century. By 1950s Brook had established himself on the English stage.



When Peter Hall transformed the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre to the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1960s, Brooks was hired as an associate director.



Brook’s 1970 production of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM is one of the seminal works of the 20th century stage. It changed the way Shakespeare was done.



Throughout his lifetime, Brook has sought to find an immediate theatre…an approach he discusses at some length in his book THE EMPTY SPACE.



For Brooks, Shakespeare’s plays are a synthesis…

1. A HOLY THEATRE that celebrates ritual and ceremony

2. A ROUGH THEATRE that is close to the people in dealing with men’s actions.

King Lear, 1971



A word about genres

Genre is a literary term that describes the classification of a work into a distinctive type based upon the treatment of its matter, its tone, structure or perspective

Aristotle was the first to describe tragedy. Roman ideas of tragedy and comedy affected Elizabethan writers like Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson.

Shakespeare’s works can similarly be described in terms of genre



Hamlet (II.2)

POLONIUSThe best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and theliberty, these are the only men.



CAUSALITY

Shakespeare’s plays are founded in CAUSALITY…the recognition that actions lead to other actions…serious, comic or historical.

A B C etc.



Organization by type

Shakespeare’s plays are usually described in these genres

Tragedy (Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear)



Comedy

(The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream)



History(Richard II, Henry V, Richard III)



Problem PlaysMeasure for Measure, All’s Well That Ends Well, Troilus and Cressida


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