Theater and Film : A Comparative Anthology (review)

The relationship between theatre and film is largely viewed in one of two ways: either as a "to the death" struggle between competing performance genres, or as a sort of "parallel universe" in which the two have little to do with each other. This vision of theatre and film as separate, competing entities is shared not only by members of the general public, but by a number of scholars as well, giving rise to universities in which theatre and film are studied in separate departments, if not different schools entirely. Even in those universities with departments that combine the two disciplines, the courses rarely overlap: a student may take a "theatre" or "film" class, but seldom has the chance to study the two side-by-side, except to compare a stage production to a screen adaptation of the same script. Robert Knopf directly addresses this gap in his anthology Theater and Film, the first of its kind in over a quarter-century. Collected here are selections from a number of notable film and theatre scholars, critics, and practitioners—A. Nicholas Vardac, André Bazin, Siegfried Kracauer, Susan Sontag, Elia Kazan, and Peter Handke, among others––addressing the cultural, historical, economic, and technological influence these two disciplines have had on each other and on twentieth-century culture at large.

In his insightful introduction, Knopf challenges the notion that theatre and film are engaged in an inherently antagonistic, mutually exclusive relationship. Responding to Susan Sontag's challenge in her essay "Film and Theatre" (included in the anthology) for "a new idea" for the relationship between the two disciplines, Knopf has structured this anthology on the premise that this relationship "must be based not only on the history and theory of the two media but also on the contributions of the artists who have been most influential in them," and that each artist's contribution is "personal, depending upon the 'lens' through which he or she views the two media" (5). Accordingly, the volume is divided into five sections, each one looking at the intersection of theatre and film through a different lens. True to his stated mission, Knopf includes not only "scholarly" articles, but interviews with working artists as well. Interspersed between the sections lie interludes, each a short personal take by a notable artist on his or her art.

The first two sections are broader and more general in scope. In "Historical Influences," Knopf includes articles by Vardac and Tom Gunning on the relationship between early twentieth-century theatre and the burgeoning film industry, one through the lens of realism, one through its antithesis in anti-realism and the avant-garde. Also included is Keiko McDonald's insightful exploration (adapted from her book Japanese Classical Theater in Films) of early Japanese cinema and its roots in the classical stage traditions of noh, bunraku, and kabuki. Section 2, "Comparisons and Contrasts," includes Sontag's influential essay as well as André Bazin's treatise on cinema as an art form with the potential to "save" theatre (from What Is Cinema?). Sarah Bay-Cheng turns the "gaze" of feminist film theory back toward the stage in her article in this section, arguing that the "gaze" of theatre is inherently different from that of film.

Sections 3 through 5 each address a particular aspect of theatre and film production, and look more closely at the artists involved in the process. The section "Writing" begins with a short interview with Roger Blin on the "growing apart" of French film and theatre, and also includes conversations with Harold Pinter and Wole Soyinka on the vagaries of writing and adapting for particular art forms. The articles Knopf has chosen for the "Directing" section range from excerpts of Eisenstein's Film Form to a symposium on "Shakespeare in the Cinema," in which directors such as Peter Brook, Baz Luhrmann, Roman Polanski, and Franco Zeffirelli discuss their experiences with adapting Shakespeare for the screen. The differences between stage- and screen-acting techniques and training are considered...