Shakespeare at the Cineplex: The Kenneth Branagh Era (review)

Reviews Samuel Crowl.ShakespeareattheCineplex: TheKennethBranagh Era.Athens,Ohio: Ohio UniversityPress,2003. Pp.xiv+ 254. $34.95. So many good films of Shakespeare's plays were released in the 1990s that it became easy to take them for granted.Now that the flood has become a trickle, though,we are in a better position to appreciate—in every sense ofthat word— the bounty ofthose times. Samuel Crowls engaging new book helps us do just that. Its subtitle and substance pay proper tribute to Kenneth Branagh, the artist more responsible than anyone else for what may increasingly be seen as a brief golden age of Shakespeare on-screen. Branagh has often been the object of condescending academic criticism; thanks in part to Crowl's book, he may now begin to receive more of the credit he deserves for helping to inspire and sustain a remarkable period of intelligent filmmaking. AlthoughCrowlobviouslyadmiresandrespects Branagh'sown achievements, his book provides thoughtful, insightful discussions ofall the major films that followed in the aftermath of Branagh's groundbreaking Henry V (1989). That work, Crowl notes, introduced "the most prolific and dynamic decade in the hundred-year history of Shakespeare on film" (25), and Crowl's book offers discussion ofthedistinctivestyles,directors,and actingthat followed in Branagh's wake. Crowl writes with clarity and grace; his is the kind ofacademic book that "regular readers" might actually want to read. Near the close of his volume he notes that"the Shakespeare films ofthe long decade have brought Shakespeare's scripts closer to a mass audience than they have been at any time since their origins in the hurly-burly liberties ofElizabethan London's South Bank" (220), and Crowl's book has the same kind ofpotential to make the films themselves more widely appreciated. The virtues of this book are varied. It offers numerous historical facts and takes a broadly historical perspective, so that readers are always aware ofhow any particular film fits into the tradition of Shakespeare on-screen. Crowl is familiar with previous cinematic criticism and is generous and fair in citing it; 417 418Comparative Drama one emerges from the book with a good sense of what has previously been thoughtand written abouttheseparticularfilms and aboutthe topic in general. Crowl knows recent critical theory but is not obsessed by it, and he also shows how mainline academic criticism of the plays can be relevant to viewing the films (67). In addition, he knows his way around not only theatrical history (79) but also the history ofnon-Shakespearean cinema (66), and indeed part of the larger argument ofhis book is that the films ofthe 1990s were energized by their engagements with more obviously "popular" movies. He contends that each of Branagh's films, for instance, "appropriates an established Hollywood genre: die war film for Henry V; screwball comedy for Much Ado About Nothing; the intelligent epic for Hamlet; and the American movie musical for Love's Labour's Lost" (12). Crowl does offer cultural criticism when doing so seems relevant (e.g. 77), and he also pays attention to the films' original contexts and reception, but his book is neither a sociological study nor a political tract. Its attention is squarely on the films as films. Crowl's comments on the films themselves often focus on telling visual details (55), including specific camera angles, the actors' physical fitness for their roles, specifics ofcostume design, particularities ofsetting, and aspects of cutting and editing. His explanations, justifications, or criticism of directorial choices are consistently perceptive and demand respect (even when one occasionallydisagrees ). He shows a healthywillingness to reconsider and revise some of his own initial responses and even to alter some of his previously published judgments, and the tone ofthe book is all the more engaging because it is often written in the first person (without being obsessively self-concerned). Crowl is often willing to admit that many ofhis reactions are simply matters ofpersonal taste (109), and his engagements with other critics are therefore usually civil and humane (85). Even when his strictures sometimes seem too severe (94), he nevertheless raises solid questions that any defender of a particular film will want to consider and address (92). In general his approach and tone are...