What is the best Shakespeare cinematization?

[laurentius]

I'd say one of the best if not the best is Much Ado About Nothing

http://akas.imdb.com/title/tt0107616/

Dont you just love shakespeare...

[alva]

Much Ado About Nothing

Luckily I only sat through the first 5 minutes.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'll pick another Branaugh adaptation, "Hamlet" (1996)

His "Henry V" is great as well .

[laurentius]

Originally posted by alva

Much Ado About Nothing

Luckily I only sat through the first 5 minutes.

Huh? Why? Its absolutely hilarious!

[alva]

Must not be my kind of humor then.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I'll pick another Branaugh adaptation, "Hamlet" (1996)

His "Henry V" is great as well .

Both "Much Ado About Nothing" and "Henry V" by Branagh were excellent. For both of these Branagh judiciously edited the original script to make it more palatable for a modern audience. He received a great deal of criticism for altering Shakespere's script, so when he made "Hamlet" he used Shakespere's original script virtually word for word. IMHO his "Hamlet" lacked the vitality of the other two films.

[laurentius]

I must see these films...Branagh is born to these roles....

[Agathon]

Ran

So what if it's in Japanese... it's set in Japan after all.

[laurentius]

Ran?? You mean the Akira Kurosawa flick!? Hows that Shakespearean? Besides the father going insane and good guys dying....

[chequita guevara]

Ran = King Lear Kirusawa also did a version of MacBeth, but I don't remember what it's called.

Damn fine movie.

Branagh's Henry V is wonderful. Haven't seen, Much Ado About Nothing.

I liked the recent version of Richard III with Ian McKellen, set in 1930s England, though Olivier's was better in many ways, though in some ways it sucked. When Olivier seduced his enemy's wife, it was believable. When McKellen did it, I was left wondering why she married him, except maybe to torture herself.

As for Hamlet, my favorite version has to be Bob and Doug McKenzie's, Strange Brew, though Rosencratz and Guildernstern Are Dead pull a close second.

Forbidden Planet was also a great remake of The Tempest.

[Agathon]

Ran?? You mean the Akira Kurosawa flick!? Hows that Shakespearean?

You mean you watched it without realizing that it was King Lear.

[molly bloom]

There's an excellent adaptation of 'Othello' by Orson Welles, which was released on dvd a few years ago. It faced some financial difficulties, so was shot pretty much 'on the run' which is why it has a kind of French 'nouvelle vague' feel.

If you can see past the blackface make-up, Welle's performance is magnificent, as is that of his Iago, the Irish actor Michael MacLiammoir:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004R6QE

The murder in the hammam is a cinematic tour de force.

I'd also recommend Kurosawa's 'Throne of Blood' and Roman Polanski's 'Macbeth'.

Polanski's 'Macbeth' is perhaps the bloodiest 'Macbeth' available, reflecting a play which is full of images and language pertaining to blood, murder, death and killing.

Kurosawa's version is an eerier version incorporating elements of Japanese ghost stories and drama, although Polanski's witches' sabbath is worth seeing too. The landscape in Polanski's version gives a genuinely unsettling and otherworldly feel to the film.

There are two Russian versions of two great Shakespearean tragedies, 'Hamlet' and 'King Lear', which were available on the Castle Hendring' video label in Great Britain. You might already be familiar with these- I think the Russians have a very sympathetic approach to Shakespeare, either in performance on stage, or on film.

For a left field approach, it would be hard to beat Derek Jarman's film of 'The Tempest' with genuine twins in the cast, and the American singer Elizabeth Welch playing the goddess who rounds out the film with a performance of 'Stormy Weather' accompanied by a chorus of sailors. Heathcote Williams is magnificent as an eccentric Prospero, and the blind actor Jack Birkett is a convincing Caliban.

Another 'left field' approach to Shakespeare is in Claudio Coronado's version of 'Hamlet', which has, if I recall, Helen Mirren as a luscious ripe Gertrude, and Quentin Crisp as a Polonius in drag.

There is a version of 'Hamlet' filmed at the Roundhouse in London with Antony Hopkins as Claudius, and Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia. Nicol Williamson plays a rather more acerbic and bitter Hamlet than is usually seen.

You might also be able to find a classic production of 'Macbeth' dating from the Seventies, which I was fortunate enough to see on British television back then. Ian McKellen is Macbeth and Judi Dench is Lady Macbeth. It has a minimal amount of props with much of the focus being on the faces, bodies and words of the cast. I know it's available in Great Britain on tape/dvd, and it's the best 'filmed play' as opposed to film adaptation of a play, I know.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Ian McKellen's other great contribution to the Shakespearean canon, his version of 'Richard III', which is actually 'Richard III' with bits from other history plays added, and the more tiresome bits of Richard III left out.

The film is an extremely convincing modernization of the play, transposing it to a quasi-fascist England of the Twenties/Thirties, thus alleviating it of any lingering historical mustiness, as lengthy repetitions of obscure English nobles' names and titles can pall on modern audiences.

All in all, as the Czech critic Jan Kott said, it makes Shakespeare our contemporary.

[laurentius]

Originally posted by Agathon

Ran?? You mean the Akira Kurosawa flick!? Hows that Shakespearean?

You mean you watched it without realizing that it was King Lear.

Haha yeah....Kinda embarrasing...

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Kirusawa also did a version of MacBeth, but I don't remember what it's called

Throne of Blood.

I've always been rather partial to Baz Luhrmann's Romeo And Juliet, to be honest. Many other literature geeks I know tend to dismiss it, primarily on the grounds that it's got Di Caprio in it and therefore can't be art, plus it's directed by an Aussie and what do non-English people know about Shakespeare anyway. I say bo**ocks to all of that - it's an excellent adaptation.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Peter Greenaway's "Prospero's books" is an adventurous adaptation of "The Tempest". It goes even further into the left-field than the Jarman version, has ravishing sets and costumes, and the voice of Sir John Gielgud throughout.