The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film (review)

Reviews493 how the enterprise in Lille and similar theatrical experiments failed. Of special interest is the book's extensive bibliography. The "selected" list, which is primarily in German, includes books, articles, dissertations, and unpublished manuscripts dealing with topics ranging from legitimate theater to puppet shows. The entries connecting art, media, and race are invaluable; and the bibliography points to another subject barely addressed in Theatre under the Nazis: cinema. This brief overview must conclude with a return to the book's first page and London's remarks about Mephisto—the 1936 roman à clefwritten in exile by Thomas Mann's son Klaus, who points a sharp pin at his onetime brotherin -law, the actor-director and Nazi collaborator Gustaf Gründgens. Klaus Mann's finely tuned novel was officially banned in Germany until 1980; the famous film version appeared one year later. The case, as London observes, demonstrates "that it was not easy to criticize those who had been directly involved in the theatre of the Third Reich." Robert Hinkel Western Michigan University Russell Jackson, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiv + 342. $60.00 casebound; $19.95 paperbound. The study of Shakespeare on film may seem an overnight success, but, like many such phenomena, its sudden success took decades. In the 1970s, the BBC created video productions of the canon, while Bernice Kliman and Ken Rothwell established The Shakespeare on Film Newsletter, following books on the topic of Shakespearean films from Jack Jorgens, Robert Hamilton Ball, and Roger Manvell. Throughout the 1980s, these reference tools were expanded. Increasingly VCRs and video disk players were available, which meant academic critics had access to a wider range offilm productions. A string oflively film versions appeared, building on the success of Kurosawa's Ran (1985), Branagh's Henry V (1989), and Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990). A generation of academics trained in both Shakespeare studies and film analysis began to look critically at Shakespearean movies. Moreover, a new interest in appropriation and intertextuality led a number of critics to consider the way Shakespeare's 494Comparative Drama works made their way onto the screen. Today, courses and books about Shakespeare on film seem to be everywhere, although one sometimes wonders about their merits. Douglas Brode's book about Shakespeare on film (Shakespeare in the Movies: From the Silent Era to Today [2000] ) has been widely and correctly criticized for its carelessness, while manywho offer"Shakespeare on Film" courses seem never to have seen a movie by Kozintsev,Welles, or Kurosawa. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film should provide much help, both by providing a firm basis for undergraduate and graduate courses, and by setting a standard ofexcellence against which one may judge newer books. Following an introductory essay by Russell Jackson in which he reminds the reader that film production is always about making—or losing—money, the book has three parts. The first, entitled "Adaptation and Its Contexts," includes four essays, pragmatic in tone. One by Jackson offers an overview of the history ofShakespeare on film, another by Michèle Willems concerns videotaped versions and the special problems which they pose. Two more examine specific plays, one by Barbara Freedman describing Richard III as an index to key moments offilm history and another by Harry Keyishian presenting Hamlet as a study example for questions about movie genres. A second part examines Shakespearean "Genres and Plays." Michael Hattaway considers the comedies. H. R. Coursen returns to the special case of Richard III. J. Lawrence Guntner considers Hamlet, Macbeth, and Lear. Finally, Patricia Tatspaugh discusses the "tragedies of love": Romeo and fuliet, Othello, and Antony and Cleopatra. In part 3, the volume attends to auteurs, and the readerlearns about directors.AnthonyDavies, Pamela Mason, Mark Sokolyansky, Deborah Cartmell, and Samuel Crowl write respectively about Olivier, Welles, Kozintsev, Zeffirelli, and Branagh. In the final section, a series ofessays address "Critical Issues." Carol Chillington Rutter examines the women characters on film, and Neil Taylor examines national and racial stereotypes. Disrupting the conventional academic triad ofgender, race, and class, this volume instead offers a third essay by Neil Forsyth on the "supernatural." Finally, Tony Howard writes about Shakespearean "offshoots," films that...