You would imagine that the first great challenge that a director might face when filming a Shakespearian work is in deciding the balance between sticking to the script and…….not. To choose we would have to ask ourselves; what is really required from the production? Hollywood traditionally sells films that market themselves on originality or even just glitz, not depth. But with Shakespeare few in the audience won’t know the plot, fewer still will admit to it and his work is deep enough to dive in and swim around. The themes and emotions have not changed since first published. Indeed, if his works were not some of the best in the history of English they wouldn’t be here. The genius is that they are timeless. Given that, once a film has been made of a play, why make another ever again?
In the case of Orson Welles’ 1955 Othello where Welles paints his face black with boot polish to play Othello an argument could be made for a remake. It is fairly obvious that this was done because the 1955 American audience wasn’t ready to see a black man kiss a white woman on the screen. This was the year of the arrest of Rosa Parks. Today, this obvious remnant of a prejudice past is at best laughable and at worst offensive. But few other films inspired by the plays could be said to bear the mandate of “long needed update”. Franco Zeffirelli’s 1991 Hamlet starring Mel Gibson, amongst others, for example, cannot justify itself on the bases that Laurance Oliver’s 1948 Hamlet was outdated. It wasn’t. Even if it had been Kenneth Brannagh's Hamlet (1996), could not have then said that it was needed or even relevant- could it? In fact, provided every movie made contained competent acting, there would really be very little reason to argue for a remake. The boffins might bicker over how aesthetically pleasing some of the cinematography was, or whether the emphasis was in the right place on certain important lines. Ultimately though, would you, the viewer, notice or appreciate the change? If you would, is it worth the price of a rental or a cinema ticket? Probably not.
Unless each film could obviously be told apart. In December of 1990 Caryn James of the New York Times wrote that “The greatest disservice Franco Zeffirelli did Mel Gibson was to tell interviewers he was inspired to cast "Hamlet" after seeing "Lethal Weapon."”. But perhaps Zeffirelli isn’t as foolish as James thinks. Assume, for a moment, that Hollywood isn’t brainwashing the world into judging everything superficially but responding to demand (that isn’t to say the demand isn’t for something similar). Movies of Shakespeare’s plays aren’t for the puritan or the English professor. The versions released recently have thought of the script as a guideline, not a work in and of itself. The first Shakespeare films were done in the spirit of preserving the genius, enjoying it and making it available to a wider audience.
The Zeffirelli generation is concerned with something different- the Lethal Weapon Shakespeare. No one will go to a film they have seen before. The self-aggrandisements of directors helps cater for this problem by allowing them to “experiment”, “paint the play as they saw it” &c. If we look at his 1991 treatment of Hamlet we see a play that we can recognise. The lines are there, most of them; they just aren’t in the right order, or the right scene- Frotinbras was totally dropped. This isn’t Hamlet this is Zeffirelli’s Hamlet. It isn’t out of place to call it as such. I did that a few lines up with Kenneth Brannagh, you didn’t even blink. What this means for Shakespeare is that he survives, in some small way. He continues through a world where fewer than ever before experience any significant amount of him. By making each film a “version” of the pervious one, the originality and the glitz that the film industry is largely based around can work for these films too.
Moreover, there is a trend lately for films success to depend not just on the amount but the type of advertising for them. In Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 “Romeo and Juliet” he replaced swords with guns branded “swords”. One might argue that this was only to make sure the film was in keeping with the modern surroundings. The answer to “why not set it where it was originally?” is as before, it has been done, it wouldn’t sell. But it didn’t appear to make the film more believable, the first scene, with guns and all, is actively comical. What it gained though, was the ability to show guns in the advertisements, along with the fast cars and life styles of the modern day rich. In this way, Shakespeare is now advertised the same way Bond is, the same flash bang action. The script suffers more than a little in an attempt to keep up this facade.
What does this mean for the last bastions of Shakespearian truth? Probably not very much. If there are serious objections to this kind of thing, demand will move to the theatre where the script is still enacted. It is not wrong, nor is it strange that our scripts should, with our society, change. These films keep Shakespeare alive, largely through making sure western youth continues to be exposed to him. All the same, Lethal Weapon Shakespeare is too far for me. The best way to judge any film on Shakespeare’s works is probably to start by assessing where it isn’t identical to his original script and ask “why”?
If the answer is something to do with taking the original script further, then that is probably an addition to Shakespeare’s greatness; this kind of film is becoming increasingly rare. I will continue to be disappointed, but not surprised, at the film industries over willingness to treat Shakespeare as superficially as they do Bond. But that isn’t to say that there won’t be films who display more Shakespearian characterisation than the modern day remakes of his works. There are plenty of good films out there that, while they don’t advertise the fact, have been influenced by or have incorporated Shakespeare’s ideas and characters. This is largely because the themes covered in the sum of Shakespeare’s works are so universal, so wide stretching and so timeless that directors and writers will inevitably come up against the same dramatic challenges and devices.
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