Chapter 1

Introduction—

Will-in-Fidelity: Exploring Postmodern Shakespearian Cinema

Remarkably, after 400 years William Shakespeare’s tragedies still have a broad influence on today’s world. It is no secret that Shakespeare wrote th= ese plays to appeal to people from all walks of life, young and old, male and female, from the royalty to the peasantry. As a businessman, he hoped to attract the largest audiences possible to his Globe theatre. With a range of characters representing different ages, sexes, races, creeds, and socioecon= omic backgrounds, and common underlying themes of power, violence, love, and corruption, his plays succeeded in speaking to the diverse crowds of the Gl= obe in his day, and continue to influence audiences around the world today. The staying power of these plays suggests that although times may change, human nature has remained fundamentally the same. Yet ironically, ShakespeareR= 17;s insightful reflections upon timeless themes has guided a radical evolution = of the performing arts from the Elizabethan stage to the postmodern cinema.

Since 1899, film's visually expressive form has opened up new creative doors for = the translation of Shakespeare, even as Shakespeare has grounded our experience= of these innovations through familiar themes.= Today, there are over two hundred and fifty Shakespeare film adaptat= ions in print, comprising their own ever-expanding sub genre. =

But in recent years, adaptations have taken much bolder steps in interpreting t= hese plays, away from familiar traditions and towards an uncertain future. =

The year 2000 marked a conclusion, not only of the millennium but also of a cen= tury of Shakespearian film in which our nostalgia for the bards poetic explorati= on of humanity has begun to negotiate with the previously unimaginable realiti= es of the postmodern world. Heralding this new era of Shakespearian cinema are= Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Ida= ho (1991), Richard Loncrain’s Richard III (1995), Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996), Julie Taymor’s Titus (1999), and Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet (2000), postmodern adaptations that deliberately expose, explore, and transcend the linguistic, historical, and cultural barriers that have long separated modern audiences from Shakespeare’s original plays. In order to make the bard more accessib= le to contemporary audiences, these productions recontextualize Shakespeare and allude to or borrow from other works of art that complement the new world t= hey create.

These productions self-consciously recontextualize Shakespeare’s tragedies through a variety of historical and cultural settings. Gus Van Sant updates Shakespeare’s Henry I= V and Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight by grounding My Own Pr= ivate Idaho in both works and growing a very unique story about the duality of the Prince’s world through shared contextual roots. In Loncrain’s Richard III (1995), a mediev= al king becomes a familiar 1930s era fascist dictator who cries out = 220;A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!” (V.i= ii) from a stalled Jeep. Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) transports “Fair Verona” (I.ii) to Verona Beach, Miami, where swords are a brand of gun and a star-crossed Romeo is reminiscent of rock star Kurt Coba= in, whose suicide in 1994 coincidentally coincided with the production of the f= ilm. The timeless world of Julie Taymor’s Titus (1999) seamlessly incorporates guns and swords, cars and horses, and even the career history of staring actor Anthony Hopkins, who feeds the queen of Goths “her own increase”= ; (V.ii) with a less than subtle reference to his role as Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the 1991, 2001 & 2002 films loosely based on the real life cannibal, Hamilt= on Albert Fish. And in Michael Almereyda’s striking visual translation o= f Hamlet (2000) into contemporary America, = the film itself becomes a reflection of the changing landscape of the humanitie= s in which film, not the play, is used to “catch the conscience of the king,” (II.ii) whose kingdom is the corporate world of New York City. These are but a sample of the countless ways in which these productions creatively reinterpret Shakespeare’s original text. Instead of compromising language, this interplay enhances it, demonstrating that fidel= ity is as much about accessibly as it is about language

These filmmakers discover a freedom within textual fidelity that can be exploited= to deepen our understanding of the original language, to reflect upon the continuity of history and art, to flesh out new meaning for our modern worl= d, and to dramatically emphasize a need for social change. Without discounting= the contributions of countless other Shakespearian film adaptations, this essay intends to investigate the successes and failures of these four particular productions within the context of these efforts in order to guide a richer realization of Shakespeare in 21^st century film.