Shakespeare on Film (review)

Book Reviews | Regular Feature elytizer who wanted others to share his enthusiasm. A career at George Eastman House, ending up as head of its Film Department, seems the perfect match of occupation and vocation. It does not come as a surprise , then, that one of the author's intentions is to kindle the fire of enthusiasm for silent film in his readers. They are not only to rediscover the medium as an enjoyable one, in which they, as viewers, have to participate much more actively than in watching talkies but what is more, they are to see its qualities as an art form, a recognition that is, as the silent film fan admonishes, still withheld from the medium. To recognize the art of predialogue film—as Card rightly insists—it does not suffice to analyze scripts and printed scenarios. Rather, the motion pictures themselves have to be watched, ifpossible in an atmosphere similar to the one prevalent in the 1920s. As a minimum, the projection speed should be correct and the movie should be accompanied by the music that was originally intended to go along with the visual. These are hazards not automatically solved when silent films are shown today. In conditions that have overcome these two problems, the movie will be watched—not on television—but in a theater. Again, the film enthusiast will easily side with the author's preference for the cinema over videotapes and television tubes. What this book offers is a subjective look at the history of silent film in America from its beginnings to the late 1920s and early 1930s, guided by a subjective but nonetheless fascinating approach to the subject matter and full of personal comments, asides, and the occasional comic relief as anecdotes told by someone who was there, with "them." The book is a personal one in its autobiographical note just as much as in the choice of movies, directors, actors and actresses, and the discussion method. Perhaps not every American film historian will agree to the dethronement ofDavidWark Griffith orErich von Stroheim, whose reputations Card finds similarly distorted, especially when contrasted with the state of the art achieved in France, Denmark, or Germany at the same time—The Cabinet ofDr. Caligari (1920) came to the author as a revelation. He finds errors in philosophy and aesthetics in Griffith, e.g., in his epic filmIntolerance (1916), and realism being undeservedly attributed to Stroheim, e.g., due to his film Greed (1925). In addition, not everyone will see the close-up as the one device that makes a film a great one and that gave the silent pictures its soul. One might even come to a different list of directors, actors and actresses important to the development of the medium. Next to Griffith and Stroheim, Card singles out Cecil B. DeMiIIe, Josef von Sternberg, King Vidor, Monta Bell with only an occasional mentioning ofCharles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and other directors who contributed greatly to American film. Much more is said about actresses than about actors, again due to the personal approach. John Barrymore and John Gilbert are dealt with at some length, so areJoan Crawford, GloriaSwanson, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Pola Negri, Louise Brooks, Clara Bow, and Jeanne Eagels. Ofcourse, many more are mentioned as the narrative moves on from individual films and techniques to vamps and flappers in film, directors and then to archives and festivals in which the author was directly involved at some time in his twenty-nine years at the George Eastman House. The choices are subjective, so is all of this eloquently presented historicaljourney. Areader willing to accept this will have a most pleasantjourney. Who knows? He or she might even end up seduced. Angela Schwarz University of Duisburg, Germany Robert Shaughnessy, editor. Shakespeare on Film. St. Martin's Press, 1998. 206 pages. Paper. All the World's a Screen Although Shakespearean film is now in its hundredth year, scholarship of these motion pictures has grown slowly. The many silent versions were largely ignored in their day, and practical reasons (namely, the lack ofavailable prints) have always been aproblem . The subsequent seventy years of Shakespearean sound film—since SamTaylor's 1929 Taming ofthe Shrew—hasprovided many opportunities...