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Afterward: Exposing Fidelity, Explo= ring Continuity

The importance of these postmodern adaptations extends beyond accessibility, representing the evolution of five hundred years of Shakespeare, 100 years = of Shakespearian film, and the millennial gateway to an unknown future. They demonstrate that removing restrictions like time, space, and budget from an already wonderful play leaves great potential for a filmmaker to create a m= ore complex, entertaining, and meaningful production, even while remaining fait= hful to the word of the text. Utilizing the timeless popularity of his plays, th= ese adaptations have brought large and diverse audiences to productions that ha= ve truly pushed the limits of his work. Some of these productions provoke and encourage social change by promoting Shakespearian themes, while others see= k to ridicule a Shakespeare who seems to perpetuate social, racial, and gender inequality, violence, and excessive power of the ruling classes. These filmmakers confront Shakespeare through film, not in order to reproduce the original experience but to further explore the timeless study of power, violence, love, and corruption that, I believe, is the essence of the Shakespearian tragedy.

Yet in spite of this deliberate exploration, the study of these works has been greatly limited by a misallocated focus on fidelity.

The language of criticism dealing with the film adaptati= on of the novel has often been profoundly moralistic, wash with terms such as infidelity, betrayal, deformation, violation, vulgarization, and desecratio= n, each accusation carrying its specific charge of outraged negativity.[1]

Obsessed with the notion of a “real Shakespeare,” many critics seem to b= egin their investigations of these films with such questions as, “If Shakespeare were alive today, is this what he would have made? Is this the authentic experience of Shakespeare, or is it merely an inferior translation?”

While it is not hard to imagine Shakespeare as a filmmaker, it is an exercise in futility that can ultimately deprecate the value of both the Bard and the filmmaker. To determine a “correct way” of translating Shakespearian themes into film is to impose limitations on both the creative potential of a playwright who was confined to the tools of Elizabethan thea= tre and on a postmodern filmmaker’s use of the vast resources of his medi= um.

“Our= fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. B= ut the amazing growth of [our] techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty = that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful”= [2]

Another important fact to consider is that it is hopelessly impossible to authentic= ally translate Shakespeare’s work into film precisely because film represe= nts a new way of experiencing it. From the moment the play is re-imagined for t= he screen, it takes on a new life, requiring different choices that open up ma= ny new possibilities. I believe we have more to learn from exploring the poten= tial of these new possibilities than by focusing on what is lost from the play t= ext in translation. In order to guide a more fruitful discussion of these films= , we must dispel this myth of fidelity that plagues postmodern exploration of Shakespeare.

In response to this new wave of contemporary Shakespearian cinema, a great many critics have argued that by changing the language, setting, plot, or any ot= her “significant” detail of a Shakespeare play, an essential elemen= t of Shakespeare is lost, and that such productions can no longer be said to represent real Shakespeare. To them, I would ask two questions: what exactl= y is “the real Shakespeare,” and what rules should govern the translation of his work?

The role of Shakespeare, while important, has become so idealized that it has become a logically unattainable idea. The original, authentic Shakespeare production does exist in the historical sense, but only as an event that happened four hundred years ago that cannot be reproduced through either fi= lm or even through live experience. Most critics base the notion of “authentic Shakespeare” on their first experiences seeing Shakespeare’s plays, perhaps with British actors, pompous accents, ti= me period clothing, etc. Whatever the circumstances, these qualities do not represent the real Shakespeare, and the experience is certainly not the authentic Shakespeare from four hundred years ago. Rather, it is merely the experience they were brought up thinking is the real Shakespeare.

The simple fact is that Shakespeare is long dead, and his surviving play texts = come second-hand from the memories of actor.&nb= sp; Because no one from this period is still alive, we cannot know first-hand what his performances were really like. Even if someone could describe the= se performances, it would not matter because the historical and cultural conte= xt has changed. The clothing, the accents, the American vs. British acting, se= tting, backdrop, time period, and other aspects of the performance are all choices that Shakespeare himself made 400 years ago as he adapted other peoples wor= k, and we are almost obligated to do the same if we want to keep his plays ali= ve for today’s audiences as he had for his own.

Filmmakers call on Shakespeare because he is a genius, not because he is original. He = did not invent the themes or basic plots of his plays. Shakespeare knew they we= re going to last because they had existed for a long period of time when he adapted them. It’s beca= use these themes don’t go away that we call them “timeless,” = and it is because these themes are timeless that continuity is possible between= the original Elizabethan Theatre and the postmodern cinema. <= /p>

As I see it, the fundamental relationship between the original arts to their adaptation is subservient to the more important relationship between the adaptations and the audience. I think critics’ emphasis on fidelity completely misses the point of postmodern Shakespearian cinema. That is, to re-imagine Shakespeare’s vision, not merely to reproduce traditional interpretations. To me, the real contact with Shakespeare is made not throu= gh textual or contextual accuracy, but through effective communication that th= e audience can identify with.

So often, the fidelity debate focuses on language. Many critics argue that American actors are not fit for performing Shakespearian language, some goi= ng as far as asserting that Shakespeare should only be performed in Elizabethan English, by British Actors. In terms of fidelity, I think it is irrelevant whether Richard III is played by Al Pacino or Ian McKellen. What matters is the quality and accessibility of the experience t= hey produce. Today, only a highly educated minority have the training to access Shakespeare’s original text, compared to the masses of his day, who at the very least were familiar with the language and setting. Of course, this isn’t the only motivation for accessibility. Hollywood is a business,= and a business is primarily concerned with profit. The profitability of Shakesp= eare saw a great increase when the barriers between the common American and the = text of Shakespeare were taken down. Accents aside, I think it is better for the actors to be accurate unless they have a strong reason to do something else, but this isn’t usually a problem in the films I’ve seen. But because the times have changed, as well as the English language for that matter, I think that a goal of fidelity in contemporary Shakespearian cinema actually justifies alterations to the traditionally British performance of = the plays in order to communicate clearly to contemporary audiences as Shakespe= are had.

To assume that the translation of Shakespeare’s vision through a modern = lens “desacralizes” seems to me a confusion of what is sacred. If we only wanted the real play, we would be better off at theatre. And even in t= he actor’s theater, there isn’t one true way of representing Shakespeare because we are a different audience watching different performe= rs under the direction of a different director.

For postmodern filmmakers, the creative process is not about fidelity; it’= ;s about different choices. “What am I going to do to make this play accessible? How is that going to affect the audience’s experience?= 221; These are the right types of questions for a filmmaker to ask himself. Sometimes, if you don’t completely understand something yet you try t= o be faithful to it, you could end up being wrong, in which case you would be be= tter off expressing your own understanding of it. Therefore, I think that the relationship between the play in the mind of the filmmaker and the film tha= t is understood by the audience is the essential issue.

I think there are good forms of infidelity and bad forms of fidelity. Consider how cinema shows things that may have only been meant to be told in the tex= t. In some cases, the use of image in place of language creates a more powerful experience. The technique of playing on words is also a common Shakespearian devise, cleverly adopted in Luhrman’s Romeo + Ju= liet creative interplay between words a= nd images. The irony of the line “the two hours' traffic of our stage;” (Prologue) being read to the image of a traffic jam and guns being branded as swords, is a deliberate play on words that is faithful to the textual device in spite of itself: making fun of impossibility of fidelity in contemporary context, and using textual fidelity to do something that is quite unfaithful, yet as an inspired narrative technique, actually heightens fidelity.

The expression “my kingdom for a horse” (V.iv) in Richard III is another example of this textual play. Of course there is no horse to sav= e him in this battle between tanks, planes, machine guns, and other machines. Ric= hard finds himself in a situation that reflects the irony of how postmodern innovations, exemplified by his useless Jeep, have hardly improved our qual= ity of life, and he would give his kingdom to trade in the now useless Jeep for= the perfectly suited hoarse that it has replaced. Here Loncraine has discovered= a new meaning using the old text, which is a fantastic way of recovering Shakespeare in an era where such language might otherwise seem meaningless.= Or consider Richard III, in which Marlowe’s poem Come Live With Me is transposed in= to a Jazz song, creating the perfect contrast to Richards’s villainy. Borrowing from another poet does not compromise faithfulness in this case, = it is merely an elaboration.

Most critics seem so focused on the form of the art of representing Shakespeare = that they have become disconnected from its purpose and content. Fidelity and continuity are not mutually exclusive, though they sometimes require compromises from each other. Ultimately, they are both part of the same goa= l: the translation of a filmmaker’s otherwise incommunicable vision into= a tangible experience for his audience.

Many successes, mistakes, and discoveries have been made in the century of Shakespeare in film. But because cinema’s history is relatively short when compared to the history of English literature, many academics find it difficult to treat the mediums with equal respect. They seem to have the no= tion that art ages like wine. But we must also remember that for this very reaso= n, many of the greatest artists weren’t fully appreciated until after th= ey died, perhaps because people were so concerned with tradition that they fai= led to recognize talent until it had become part of the establishment. Shakespe= are wasn’t known for breaking tradition, his work is relatively conservat= ive. But one thing his own work does is liberally adapt other people's work. Is Shakespeare necessarily superior? Should we look at how well film subordina= tes to this superior literature?

Consider how in Baz Luhrman’s <= span style=3D'font-family:TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;mso-hansi-font-family:TimesNe= wRomanPS-ItalicMT; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"'>Romeo + Juliet, guns have replaced swords. This is not problematic to our abi= lity to appreciate the conflict between the Montegues and the Capulets. From the stylized art of the gunfight to the deafening sound of the gunshot, there i= s a seamless blend of both realism and art that account for the original experi= ence of swordplay. In this way, Luhrman creates a scene that recalls Shakespeare’s vision of swordplay effectively without shattering the illusion of a contemporary Shakespearian world.

I think the film world should embrace whatever offers the best means of translation. The only limitations on the artist’s choices should be b= ased on how s/he desires to communicate, knowing his audience. If a given specta= tor can only relate to “traditional” interpretations, that is his issue. But for a filmmaker to hold back the opportunity for a more complex = form of communication is the willful denial of the evolution of art. With or wit= hout film, we hear a sound with our ears, we see a vision with our eyes, and the= se sounds and visions must be interpreted to bring meaning. For certain sounds= or visions to take on a desired meaning, sometimes they must be changes from t= he original form. The postmodern creative process is not about sacrifice. It is instead about communication, continuity, and depth. The times call for new theories and a new vocabulary to account for and better understand the work= of these artists, as well as that which looms ahead. I think we need to rethink the theories and vocabulary for what has always been and will always be a medium for the expression of ones imagination, not to preserve a given text, but to open new doors for its evolution. By changing context, filmmakers can preserve and reintroduce Shakespeare to hard to reach contemporary audience= s, and simultaneously inspire new connections for postmodernist and Shakespear= ian thinkers, achieving something greater than fidelity: continuity.