Screening Early Modern Drama: Beyond Shakespeare by Pascale Aebischer, and: Spectral Shakespeares: Media Adaptations in the Twenty-First Century by Maurizio Calbi (review)

Pascale Aebischer is one of the foremost critics to have worked on Derek Jarman, the avant-garde filmmaker known for his irreverent recreations of Renaissance culture. But in Screening Early Modern Drama: Beyond Shakespeare Aebischer discusses with insight and scholarship a series of films dating from both sides of the millennium that, taking up Jarman’s example, move beyond the Shakespeare canon and explore the dramatic inheritances of Ford, Jonson, Marlowe, Middleton, and their ilk. Case studies are devoted to memorable films such as Mike Figgis’s Hotel (2001)—an adaptation of The Duchess of Malfi, which is compared to Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989)—Alex Cox’s Revengers Tragedy (2002), and television productions such as Compulsion (2009), an ITV adaptation of The Changeling. Inside these case studies, Aebischer writes with zeal and brilliance, and the chapters themselves are packed with stimulating local analyses.

It would be wrong to see what Aebischer terms “Jacobean film” as being centered only on a modest clutch of fascinating instances because, throughout, discussion is contextualized in terms of a wide range of other artists and movements (hence, in chapter 1, the distinctive contribution of Jarman’s Edward II is linked to the influence of Artaud, Eisenstein, Visconti and others). Conclusively making a case for the films as a “coherent corpus” (6), Aebischer’s study refutes the assumption that there is no tradition of adapting non-Shakespearean drama to the screen. With its two substantial appendices (225–51), Screening Early Modern Drama superbly maps a new field and provides the materials for it to develop and prosper.

One major virtue of the book is its demonstration of the interconnectedness of the chosen materials. Building on the theory of Susan Bennett, Aebischer makes a compelling case for a Jacobean aesthetic, characterized by its “transgressive, violent . . . sexually dissident . . . and modern” (4) tendencies. The book showcases how these Jacobean films assume a consistently oppositional attitude, generating schema of representation marked by thrillingly dissident energies. Crucial are Aebischer’s arguments for the engagement of her filmmakers with the present. Equally important is the extent to which the plays themselves constitute sites of contemporary critique: by juxtaposing her examples with early modern conceits (a purposeful anachronism), Aebischer places “the past and present” in “dialogue” (7), with illuminating results. For example, she unpacks Compulsion in the light of George Puttenham’s rhetorical figure of “hypallage” (189), while a related trope, that of “cannibalism,” as popularized by Montaigne, is tied to Hotel, the two sharing an uncanny partnership (68). Screening Early Modern Drama mounts its arguments with brio; it also affords a pleasurable reading experience, not least because of the connections it makes between then and now. Early modern drama assessed in this way forms a vital part of present-day culture, practice, and belief.

Throughout, Aebischer’s meticulous situating of her materials inside industry and production contexts is a distinctive strength, and there are salutary lessons for those of us working on Shakespeare, film, and performance. The author’s polemic reveals both the development of filmmakers’ ideas across periods of time (a historical move that has not always been sufficiently rehearsed) and the ways in which these ideas are shaped by changes in technology, financial shifts, and political vicissitude. Indeed, Aebischer is particularly acute in spotlighting the constraints placed on the independent filmmaker and charting how they affect meaning and style. Her discussion of Revengers Tragedy, for example, is enlivened by the details of Cox’s public battles with the British Film Council, one of his backers (139–40). More generally, identifying the material underside to Jacobean film production lends the study an original interpretive edge.

In addition, her technical know...