Shakespeare and Film
1910
The film The shortest The film adaptation 1913 Taming of of Hamlet, only the Shrew, 59 minutes, was starring released. 1929 Mary Pickford & Douglas Fairbanks, was the first ‘talkie’ version of a Khoon Ka Khoon (Blood Shakespeare play. for Blood) or Hamlet, 1930 directed by Sohrab Modi, was the first Hindi/Urdu sound film adaptation of a Shakespeare play. 1935 The adaptation 1936 of As You Like It The first television marked the first broadcast of Shakespeare appearance 1937 was on 5 February 1937. of Laurence The BBC broadcast an Olivier as a character in a 11-minute scene from Shakespearean film. As You Like It, starring Margaretta Scott as Rosalind and Ion 1940 Swinley as Orlando. Laurence Olivier’s adaptation of Henry V 1944 was an attempt to boost morale and patriotism “This is the during the Second World War. tragedy of a 1948 man who could not make up his mind…” —From the spoken prologue of Laurence Olivier’s version of Hamlet. 1950
1952 Orson Welles directed “Look upon the ruins/ Of and starred in his film the castle of delusion.” adaptation of Othello. —Lines from the prologue 1957 of the Japanese adaptation of The Bad Sleep Well, a Macbeth, Japanese film involving Kumonosu-jÔ 1960 corporate greed and (Throne of Blood). vengeance, is released as a loose adaptation 1960 of Hamlet. Shakespeare Wallah, though not an adaptation of a play, features a fictional theater troupe The Swedish filmElvira in India that performs 1965 Madigan was reminiscent Shakespeare plays in of Romeo and Juliet, towns across the nation. playing on the familiar 1967 Shakespearean theme of Shakespearean film love and tragedy. became a subject of full-length Orson Welles’ academic 1969 uncompleted adaptation study. of The Merchant of Venice was released, but large Laurence Olivier 1980 parts of the performed his last role in original later a Shakespearean play as went missing. the titular character in the television adaptation of 1983 King Lear Den Tragiska historien om 1984 Hamlet, Prins av Danmark (The Tragic Story of Hamlet - Prince of Denmark) was a two-part Swedish television series Henna was an directed by Ragnar Lyth. Indian film which 1990 retold the story of Romeo and Juliet by Of the many British film portraying the play’s familial and television adaptations feud through a linguistic of Hamlet, director divide. Juliet’s family spoke 1992 Kenneth in Hindi and Romeo’s family Branagh’s spoke in Urdu. is by far the 1996 longest, Michael Hoffman directed a totaling film version of A Midsummer 242 Night’s Dream starring 1999 minutes. Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer and Stanley Tucci. The animated adaptation 2010 Gnomeo and Juliet was released 2011 with a new twist on the old play.
H. J. Oliver, ed., The Oxford Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew, p. 74. Kenneth S. Rothwell, A History of Shakespeare on Screen (1995), p. 95. Anthony Davies, ‘Lawrence Olivier’s Henry V’, in Robert Shaughnessy, ed., Shakespeare on Film (Basingstoke, 1998). oup.com/Shakespeare