In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Shakespeare Quarterly 53.2 (2002) iii-x



[Access article in PDF]

From the Editor


In his "Motion Pictures" column for 23 October 1912, the New York Dramatic Mirror's "Film Man" extolled cinema's ability to "lessen death's ravages" by "keeping alive an actor's art when the actor is in his grave." Imagining the future, he writes:

When students of dramatic history in the year 2000 read of the Romeo and Juliet of [E. H.] Sothern and [Julia] Marlowe they may visit the theater around the corner and see Sothern and Marlowe as they appeared on the stage back in 1912. Then it is not unreasonable to imagine that up-to-date colleges will have secured the films of dramatic importance and learned professors will supplement their lectures, not to say enliven them, by showing motion picture scenes explanatory of their subjects. Women's clubs would be in a position to vary their Shakespearean afternoons with "Half a Dozen Romeos in Pictures," or some kindred subject, and a prize might be offered for the best analysis of the different interpretations. 1

Just as the Film Man's uncanny prediction of present-day classroom screenings appeared at a moment when the conjunction of Shakespeare and cinema was an emergent phenomenon, this special issue of Shakespeare Quarterly marks another moment, one when filmed Shakespeare has risen to prominence not only within the mass-culture entertainment marketplace but also within a global Shakespeare industry.

At a time when the years spanning the millennium have spawned a series of projects within literary as well as film studies devoted to taking stock of the present state of those enterprises, it seems appropriate to consider how writing about Shakespeare films, now a major strand or subculture of Shakespeare studies, figures in such critical histories. Like most accounts, this one is partial as well as subjective. Tied to particular touchstones of viewing, it not only offers a map of how intersections between ways of looking and ways of writing have shaped critical discourse on and about filmed Shakespeare but also, by suggesting where we have been, where we are now, and where we might be going, serves to situate the six essays in this issue.

The earliest writers about Shakespeare films, reviewers for trade papers such as the New York Dramatic Mirror, Moving Picture World, and Motion Picture News, eagerly touted silent cinema for bringing Shakespeare's theater to life through wonderfully [End Page iii] detailed "photoplay marvels" in which the actors' gestures, "call[ing] familiar words to mind," ensured "rapturous reception"; as one reviewer remarked: "This kind of work pays, and the more it is done, and well done, the more it will pay." 2 Yet alongside such fulsome praise from critics, many of whom were spokespersons for the industry as well as for the "artistic" quality and cultural value of its products, the early stages of a debate over Shakespeare's wholesale appropriation by the new medium were forming. Although both advertising and review discourse called attention to magnificent spectacle, to "faithful" character portrayals by accomplished actors, and to a particular film's "Shakespearean atmosphere," another strand of commentary acknowledged that, given his disregard for scenic unity, Shakespeare might have profited from a scenario editor's advice. Indeed, a producer's only recourse was "to take what he has written and in a respectful spirit adapt it to the needs of the camera." 3

By mid-twentieth century, as that debate was established within the academy, its terms became increasingly polarized. As questions of what was or was not "a respectful spirit" surfaced, some critics worried over whether conventions developed for the early modern platform stage could translate to film, while others, arguing that Shakespeare's stagecraft was protocinematic, drew analogies between the ability of the open stage to shift locales quickly and that of the film edit to do likewise; or, as Sergei Eisenstein had done, mined the plays as "original" sources of montage. 4 Whereas some voices fantasized that, were Shakespeare to return, he would write not for the stage but for film and television, others remained doubtful. If not explicitly evoking...

pdf

Share