...In our teaching of Shakespearean film adaptation to undergraduates, one of the issues that frequently arises in class discussions is the question of how the visuality of the cinematic medium is constructed in tension against the verbal nature of Shakespeare's dialogue. The tension between the visual and verbal dimensions of filming Shakespeare is created on two levels: firstly, where the poetry of Shakespeare, functioning as word pictures that stimulate and enhance the imagination of the spectator is set against the capacity of film to show rather than tell; and secondly, where the adaptation negotiates with the canonicity of the Shakespearean text through the mode of the popular.[1] One recent example is Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996) in which the play was made to compete radically with what has been called Luhrmann's 'MTV'-inspired editing, pacing and styling. [2] Another is Branagh's Hamlet (1996), where the concentrated effort to retain every single line of the play created its own burden of visualisation.[3] The creative energy of a Shakespearean film adaptation is often sustained by the dynamic of creating a visual track to 'match' the play's dialogue; in other words, by the question of what images can be used to animate or do 'justice' to Shakespeare's text. Where Shakespeare on film had once been expected to retain the traits of 'high' theatre and art, complete with 'authentic' period costumes,[4] recent adaptations have become more adventurous, liberally adopting...
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...The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. Set in the Kingdom of Denmark, the play dramatizes the revenge Prince Hamlet exacts on his uncle Claudius for murdering King Hamlet, Claudius's brother and Prince Hamlet's father, and then succeeding to the throne and taking as his wife Gertrude, the old king's widow and Prince Hamlet's mother. The play vividly portrays both true and feigned madness – from overwhelming grief to seething rage – and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption. Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play and among the most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language, with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others." The play was one of Shakespeare's most popular works during his lifetime It has inspired writers from Goethe and Dickens to Joyce and Murdoch, and has been described as "the world's most filmed story after Cinderella". Shakespeare based Hamlet on the legend of Amleth, preserved by 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum as subsequently retold by 16th-century scholar François de Belleforest. He may also have drawn on or perhaps written an earlier Elizabethan play known today as the Ur-Hamlet. He almost certainly created the title role for Richard Burbage, the leading tragedian of Shakespeare's time. In the 400 years since, the role has been performed by highly acclaimed actors and actresses from each successive age. Three...
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