My favorite Shakespeare film adaptation. There are some wonderful passages in it (Cobweb Forest, Asagi, the Noh influenced Lady Macbeth, the death by arrow attack finale) as well as a good deal of tedium (endless knocking at castle gates, uninspired army formations) but we're all richer for Kurosawa's contribution.
Obviously Julius Caesar is one of the world's great plays. This is not a criticism of the play but the characters are not the larger than life type except for Julius who just shows up to be badgered about the Ides of March. Antony (before Cleopatra), Octavian, Brutus and Cassius are involved with conventional political machinations despite Brutus thinking otherwise. So in some ways the characters bring the play down to a journalistic level.
Absolutely, which makes it intriguing to watch. This isn't Aeschylus. Politics is petty by default. Though it's interesting to think about how he might have handled a figure like Napoleon, who admitted that exercising power consisted of greatness and pettiness in the the same person.
I feel that the play seriously runs out of steam once the assassination has been accomplished and Mark Antony makes his big speech. After that, the ending is predictable. Apparently, Laurence Olivier agreed with me (not that that necessarily means anything).
Well you are criticizing history which is almost always anticlimactic. History always seems predictable and certain afterwards. Shakespeare was pretty consistent with the historical record so this had nothing to do with Shakespeare per se. I don't disagree with your perception though that the first half dominates the second half.
Tom Stoppard's aburdist play about two school chums of Shakespeare's Hamlet, who turn out to be murdering conspirators, was made into a movie. With dialogue and directiond by Stoppard, delivery and performances by Gary Old man, Tim Roth and Richard Dreyfuss (among others) you could do worse. The conceit is that the primary action of Shakespeate's play happens in the background whilst his two minor characters, R&G, are brought forward as main characters. Works out amusingly well.
Never understood the love for Richard III. One of the most dastardly of villains in English historical drama he seems more suited as a foil to a real heroic character to my eyes; but a whole play about him? The language remains the primary attraction for me. And with fine supporting players like Claire Bloom and John Geilgud, Laurence Olivier at least had some fun making a film version of the Elizabethan potboiler Richard III (1955)
A much better, at least fuller (4 hour), version of Richard III is the 1983 BBC film. The production values are about as low as I've ever seen for a Shakespeare play, save high school productions, but the performances are superb. The full film (4 parts)
It took me a while to realise that R&G have no knowledge of themselves beyond what is said in the text. They have no memory of their existence before the moment "they were sent for" or even who of them is who. A very clever and extemely entertaining little film.
Yes, that's good. It certainly allows Stoppard to play with vacuous abandon. “I don't think I've ever spent half an hour in my life doing research. I've spent many, many days of my life reading for pleasure in order to inform myself about something,"
UK award winning actor, Anthony Sher, who is currently playing King Lear in the RSC production of the play at BAM talks about his career long experience with Shakespeare: Antony Sher
I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the. rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting
OK, maybe Titus Andronicus makes a better case for that title (potboiler) but Will was sailing with the political wind in Richard.
Titus Andronicus is a rather interesting case as the scenario and occasionally the dialogue do play to a "low crowd" for Grand Guignol to use an anachronism. However the plot construction and balancing of forgiveness and empathy vs cruelty and vengeance is exemplary and far above similar plays. There is also plenty of ironic contrast such as the son of Titus entering at the end with an army of Goths while the beginning of the play showed Titus victorious and vengeful over those same Goths.
I don't find murder stories intriguing in the least but Macbeth remains my favorite Shakespeare play. Glad it was written. It's as odd and intriguing and the poet himself. Thank You & Happy Birthday, Master Will.
Gonna miss this production (the run ends Sunday) which bums me out slightly. A revisit of Paul Scofield's Lear will have to do - and luckily we have the 1971 Peter Brook film that has captured Scofield's great performance for posterity:
Lunch time fodder; but rather than hauling the 10 pound Riverside Shakespeare from home for easy perusal this isn't a bad catch-all/Shakespeare "all you need to know" trivia magazine. If you can get a discount on the $25 list price all the better.