What is the best Shakespeare cinematization?

[Ben Kenobi]

I haven't seen that 1960 Romeo and Juliet, though.

Given that Aggie and I seem to have similar tastes, I prolly should.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Well it wasn't just that . I think it was an attempt to 'MTV-ize' Romeo & Juliet. I'm not sure if it was a good idea to try for the gang war setting .

I think it was a perfect setting. Quite possibly it was exactly what Shakespeare wanted when he set it in Venice between two rival families. Even the first scene at the gas station comes alive in a modern gang context.

"Do you bite your thumb at us sir?"

Brilliant stuff.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Bah... utter dreck. I'd rather flush it down the toilet never to be seen again. Then again, it isn't as bad as "The English Patient".

[Agathon]

Given that Aggie and I seem to have similar tastes, I prolly should.

Other than your Neil Diamond avatar, you must be joking.

[Kuciwalker]

I don't think he meant politically

[Agathon]

I don't think he meant politically

Neither did I.

That is Neil, isn't it?

[Ben Kenobi]

Nope.

It's a physicist at Cornell, and the fellow of whom I am currently playing in Mafia.

Other than your Neil Diamond avatar, you must be joking.

In women? Our taste run to the same type.

[Agathon]

In women? Our taste run to the same type.

SOB!! I want you banned!!

Ming!!! He accused me of wanting Mariah Carey!!! A worse insult cannot be imagined!!!

[Ben Kenobi]

Then who do you like?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III

Molly, sometimes you scare me. You wrote that from memory? Wow.

Indeed. I had the good fortune (fortune and men's eyes?) to own nearly all the films I listed.

I missed out on mentioning Trevor Nunn's staging of 'Othello' updated to an American Civil War setting, with Ian McKellen as a truly maleficent Iago, who at times almost seems to understand why he hates the Moor , played by Willard White, so much.

I should also mention the Peggy Ashcroft/Paul Robeson staging, some of which I've seen as clips in documentaries about Shakespeare or theatre, and which apprently featured such a passionate convincing performance from Robeson that members of the audience stood up to warn him about Iago's plotting against him. I imagine it helped that he and Peggy Ashcroft were said to be having an affair....

Unfortunately I was born too late to see what I've heard was one of those stagings you' d give your eye teeth for, like the Georgian version of 'Richard III' or Welles's voodoo 'Macbeth'.

The BBC filmed all of Shakespeare's plays, with mixed degrees of success- Michael Hordern was a suitably barking King Lear, but Antony Hopkins was just plain wrong as Othello. Derek Jacobi did turn in an athletic intellectually convincing Hamlet though.

I much prefer Baz Luhrmann's version of 'Romeo and Juliet' to Zeffirelli's melting chocolate box of a film. Olivia Hussey may look radiant and fragrant, but I believe Luhrmann's version is much closer to the spirit which informs the play. Casual violence and gang warfare were just as much a part of the Elizabethan social scene as any Tex-Mex or Floridian barrio setting.

There was if I recall a Paul Mazursky directed Tempest from the 70s which was just tedious.

I'm fond of Olivier's 'Richard III' but it seems a trifle cartoony now, and his Othello is a little too Minstrel Show via the Caribbean for me. You keep expecting him to burst out singing the Banana Boat song...

Unfortunately due to having to study 'Henry V' intensely at A level I absolutely loathe and detest the play, and would gladly watch American daytime soaps rather than view another staging of it any time soon.

'The Taming of the Shrew' should be taken up, then thrown very hard in an incinerator. Better to watch their performances in the film of Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf?' where they cut down on the ham content and concentrate on acting.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by SpencerH


I think it was a perfect setting. Quite possibly it was exactly what Shakespeare wanted when he set it in Venice between two rival families. Even the first scene at the gas station comes alive in a modern gang context.

"Do you bite your thumb at us sir?"

Brilliant stuff.

Verona.

Had it been Venice, Esther Williams would have been great as Juliet, with Johnny Weissmuller a perfect Romeo.

Staging by Busby Berkeley, producer, ah, Kevin Costner. Who did something in a similar vein, I believe...

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by SpencerH


I think it was a perfect setting. Quite possibly it was exactly what Shakespeare wanted when he set it in Venice between two rival families. Even the first scene at the gas station comes alive in a modern gang context.

"Do you bite your thumb at us sir?"

Brilliant stuff.

Verona.

Had it been Venice, Esther Williams would have been great as Juliet, with Johnny Weissmuller a perfect Romeo.

Staging by Busby Berkeley, producer, ah, Kevin Costner. Who did something in a similar vein, I believe...

[techumseh]

McKellan's Richard III is my favorite, the confluence with 1930's fascism is unnerving. Second is Branagh's Henry V.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by molly bloom


Verona.

Had it been Venice, Esther Williams would have been great as Juliet, with Johnny Weissmuller a perfect Romeo.

Staging by Busby Berkeley, producer, ah, Kevin Costner. Who did something in a similar vein, I believe...

You sent it twice to emphasize my slip eh ?

Venice, Verona. One of those eye-tie places with a V in't.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Agathon

In women? Our taste run to the same type.

SOB!! I want you banned!!

Ming!!! He accused me of wanting Mariah Carey!!! A worse insult cannot be imagined!!!

Actually, I was imagining that he was referring to Ann Coulter.