Summary:
A comparative study of the works of Shakespeare and their adaptations in film, shows that films can significantly alter the theme, message and style portrayed by the writer. Films true to the corresponding literature are truly works of art.
The goal of this piece of writing is to make a comparative study of the various works of Shakespeare, but not as they are presented in their written form. Rather, I am choosing to explore and compare his works as they have been presented and adapted for contemporary audiences through the medium of film. What is lost in adaptation? What is gained? Do contemporary accoutrements lend themselves to a deeper understanding of the original works; does the "magic" of editing and special effects lend itself to a similar deeper understanding, or does it instead make the work seem too "real?"
Rather than seek out various adaptations based upon their critical merits or demerits, I chose to instead focus only on the most recent adaptations of any given work. I feel that regardless of the quality, or lack thereof, of the films chosen in this manner, choosing them by this method best serves to illuminate how the perception and adaptation of Shakespeare's work has progressed for a contemporary audience. To serve this end, the focus of my work will be directed towards Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, O (the most recent adaptation of Othello) and Ten Things I Hate About You (the most recent adaptation of Taming of the Shrew).
While all of the films have been adapted so that their settings are in today's United States, what remains unchanged in adaptation from film-to-film is often quite varied, if not interesting and, perhaps overly, ambitious.
Two of the films, Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet, retain Shakespeare's original dialogue. While portrayed as 21st century college students, businessmen and gang-bangers, the characters spend the entirety of the films performing their lines as Shakespeare had originally written them (save for occasions where lines or scenes are simply left out, such as in the alterations to Hamlet where Hamlet does not discover his father's ghost while with Horatio and the others--he is instead told of the ghost by them and left to meet the spirit alone in his quarters), which, surprisingly, comes off quite successfully in most instances.
Where this proves least successful is where, in Romeo & Juliet, the dialogue adds a note of comedy and/or absurdity not suitable to the original work. In Act 1, Scene 1, the exchange between Abraham and Samson, joined by Gregory, Benvolio and Tybalt and leading to the brawl between them is much more serious in the original work. Understanding the cultural context of the time, and how offensive the biting of one's thumb is to an Italian, the scene gravely sets up the conflict between the houses Capulet and Montague. In the film, however, Samson's pink hair, Abraham's Latin ethnicity and Verona's obvious placement in Los Angeles, as opposed to Italy, causes the cultural context to be lost and makes the verbal exchange--at a gas station--almost absurd.
An equal difficulty for both of these films, in keeping Shakespeare's dialogue, is the business of sword fighting. In contemporary America, people don't walk around carrying swords and dueling with each other whenever they get the urge. Both movies solve this by replacing swords and daggers with various modern firearms. Again, Hamlet pulls this off most successfully.
In Hamlet, the director and/or screenwriter simply left out most all lines directly addressing the term "dagger" or "sword" when such an item was physically present and obviously a gun. The one place where the film abandons this is during the duel between Laertes and Hamlet in the final Act of the play and film.
In this scene, Laertes and Hamlet don fencing gear and duel. There are no poisoned swords, however: when, in line 242 of Hamlet 5:2, Hamlet says "I pray you pass with your best violence," Laertes, in the film, draws a pistol and rushes Hamlet. Shots are fired, and both combatants are mortally wounded. It is after this that Gertrude collapses and Laertes, rather than Gertrude, lets Hamlet know that she is poisoned by Claudius and releases his gun to Hamlet, which he then uses to dispatch Claudius.
Romeo & Juliet instead keeps the sword and dagger references. When, again in Act 1, Scene 1, Capulet says in line 67, "give me my longsword," he reaches for a shotgun mounted on the inside wall of his limo--complete with a miniature plaque beneath it labeled "longsword." "Dagger" and "sword" become the name brands of the various guns wielded by the cast members and add a small amount of absurdity to this tragic romance.
Perhaps further disturbing is how impersonal gunplay seems compared to swordplay. It seems a more personal act to stab a man than to unload a clip of bullets into him. I think the director must have felt similarly, because the death of Mercutio in Act 3, Scene 1 is still a death by stabbing: while he fights Tybalt, Tybalt is disarmed and thrown into a window, breaking the glass; it is a shard of this glass that Tybalt uses to stab Mercutio.
Another unfortunate side effect of this replacement of blades with guns is how much more gory it makes certain events in the films--though this is due more to the filmmakers' decisions to then show what they show rather than to have the taste to show more restraint.
While neither Paris nor Friar Laurence make an appearance in the tomb for the film's final act, as they do in the play's, Juliet instead is left to awaken in time to watch her distraught Romeo imbibe his poison and die. She then takes up Romeo's "dagger," places it to her temple, delivers her final lines and pulls the trigger. As disturbing as this is to watch, the director at least had the taste not to show the wound as the cameras panned away from the scene, observing the two lovers' dead forms resting together.
This is not the case, however, in Hamlet. When Hamlet mistakes Polonius (perhaps the largest absurdity of all is the casting of Bill Murray to this role) for Claudius and shoots him as he hides in the closet, his shot strikes Polonius in the head, rather than the chest, and the viewers are greeted with the very unwholesome visual of the contents of Polonius' head splattered about as his corpse collapses before Hamlet and Gertrude. Gorier still, Hamlet's following lines to Gertrude as he disposes of Polonius' body are done over cellular phone as the viewer is shown Hamlet dragging Polonius' body, blood trail and all, down a hallway. In this instance, more than any other, I feel that the "magic" of filmmaking really makes any of these adaptations truly abhorrent.
On the other hand, there are instances where the effects and editing really help to pull things off. In the film, Hamlet is a student of film-making and this helps certain aspects of the film to really work. For one, the bulk of Hamlet's soliloquies are shown as videotaped recordings of him simply talking to a camera--much like a video journal of sorts. Similarly effective, the introductory and concluding narratives of Romeo & Juliet are presented as televised news broadcasts.
Perhaps the place this works best, though, is in the production of "The Murder of Gonzago." For a modern audience, it would have seemed slightly absurd to show a playing troupe (placed in New York, "Denmark" is the name of a corporation, the play would likely be more difficult to manipulate) convinced to alter their work at the mere request of someone who is merely the son of a corporate leader. Instead, the play is made into a student film, created by Hamlet, and presented to family and friends as his own simple artistic endeavors. Hamlet's intent, to uncover Claudius' treachery, remains true, but the means Claudius is caught is updated and made more believable for a contemporary audience.
Like Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, as adapted here, is not without its own moments of absurdity, though they are less pronounced. As previously mentioned, the casting of Bill Murray in the role of Polonius seems a great error in someone's judgment: he seems too unable to abandon his own comic background and so comes off as seeming quite constipated and stiff in the delivering of his lines. In addition to this, the ghost of Hamlet's father is able to ruffle Hamlet's hair and push him about--if he's able to take on such physical life, why not take up a "dagger" and avenge his own murder?
This isn't to say that these films don't have their own beautiful moments or don't adapt the plays well in other regards. In Hamlet, scenes with Ophelia are often shot with Ophelia near water: fountains, swimming pools, etc. This does well to both foreshadow her own death and to soften the scenes for her character. Where all other scenes are shot in the concrete jungle of New York, Ophelia is given a little grace by her accompaniment to water.
What I found particularly quaint for both films was that, if one so chose to view the films in this way, the gender ambiguity, the illusion where the women could possibly be boys was maintained. While I know that Claire Danes and Julia Styles (the actors who portray Juliet and Ophelia, respectively) are both women, the illusion that they are merely boys in Shakespeare's troupe can be maintained through the lack of frontal nudity given them in the films.
I've seen previous adaptations of Romeo and Juliet where, when showing the wedding night and/or following morning, Juliet's breasts are captured on film. In this adaptation, the most these scenes give us of Claire Danes is a shot, and a short one at that, of her back--if seeing is believing, she could very well be a boy. Additionally, during the film's balcony scene, the young lovers eventually progress to the swimming pool--with Juliet in her nightgown. The director, however, never caters to the lowest common denominator by showing a damp Juliet with sheer, wet, clingy clothes.
This leads to what I feel is perhaps the most disturbing and unlikable film adaptation: the film O. O is the 2001 film adaptation of Othello, updated for modern times by changing portions of the plot and setting the action within a private school and its basketball team.
Odin James (I can't even get past the fact that the screenwriter and/or director went ahead with a name where the initials are "O.J."--as if the violence of the film needed even more connection to real life violence. Do we still need to be beaten over the head with reminders of our nation's all too real instances of black athletes coldly murdering their white wives?), is the modern Othello. He's the star of the basketball team (to the chagrin of the movie's Iago character: Hugo), and boyfriend of the lovely Desi Barble.
The film fails to create sympathy for any of its characters other than its Desdemona--the only character to do no wrong throughout the entire film. She is the liberal pioneer, standing up to her father in her relationship with Odin, and demanding Odin treat her honorably when he starts accusing her of infidelity. She is not the Desdemona of 1:3 who begs to be allowed to go with Othello to Cyprus. She is not the Desdemona who can do naught but to deny the charges of infidelity Othello lays upon her.
Odin, however, is, from the film's beginning to its end, the image of the brute. His heroism on the court is savage, selfish and plays too much on the stereotype of black people being the ones who excel at sports (he's the only black person in his school, and the star of the team, which does mimic the play somewhat but still has disturbing undertones when viewed in a contemporary setting). He's far too easily swayed by Hugo's insinuations against Desi and Michael, and far too easily resolves with Hugo to murder Desi and Michael.
Nothing is more abhorrent, however, than the scene where Odin and Desi have gone away to spend the night together and an enraged and distrusting Odin rapes Desi, graphically shot for all to view. This doesn't occur in the original play, and serves no end short of turning the stomach. In this one scene, the movie loses all credibility as Shakespearean art of any sort, and Desi's later apologizing for Odin's actions destroys any feminist strength that had previously been added to her character in one fell sweep.
Perhaps the oddest "adaptation" (and I say "adaptation" because, at best, I can only argue the spirit of the original play is maintained) is the latest film version of Taming of the Shrew: 10 Things I Hate About You.
Much of the premise remains the same: there are two sisters, Bianca and Kate; Kate is unliked, unkind and "shrewish;" two suitors seek Bianca's heart; Kate must have a suitor before Bianca is allowed to have one. But even this last premise remains tenebrous.
Petruchio is no longer from Verona--he is Verona. The play has been made a teen comedy and the girls are high school students (Padua is now the high school, while the city is Seattle). Bianca, popular and social, can not date unless her sister dates, and her sister, unpopular and antisocial, has no desire to date whatsoever.
A crucial difference in the plot, however, revolves around Baptista and his own motivations for the rules regarding Bianca's dating. This is not a Baptista who fears his daughter will never marry and so requires that she marry before Bianca (in fact, he dreads Kate's departure for college); this is instead a Baptista who would rather neither daughter date. In this film, Baptista is an OB-GYN who, seeing teenaged mothers every day, wants to spare his daughters of such a condition. Compared to the Baptista of the play, he seems an anti-Baptista.
Kate, likewise, is a different beast. Her disdain for fitting in and catering for the views of others is portrayed as a good thing, and well it should. As filmed, she is strong and independent in a world where these are good traits. She isn't broken or tamed by Verona the way Kate is by Petruchio; the only "taming" she undergoes is the love she eventually comes to share with Verona.
Kate's portrayal of independence as a strength even plays into Bianca's growth--she eventually takes a "shrewish" turn of her own and breaks the nose of the more unsuitable of her suitors: Joey. This scene also leads in to the revelation that Baptista has always appreciated and valued Kate's independence: when Kate tells him of Bianca's fight and how her unsavory traits have rubbed off on her sister, he refutes her--saying how proud he is that Kate rubbed off on her in such a way.
While I wouldn't applaud the film as an accurate representation of a work by Shakespeare, as it has been so thoroughly "adapted" that it holds only the barest of similarities, I have to applaud its attempts toward at least maintaining some spirit of the original play. Some of the most enjoyable moments in the play are those where Kate pays verbal lip to someone and/or cuffs them about the ear. Likewise, film-Kate's snappy repartee and physical moments carry the same spirit.
I would be the last person to suggest someone not read the works themselves, though I recognize a cognitive deficiency of my own where I have great difficulty unpacking meaning from the work I read--such that if I can follow the reading with an audio or video presentation of the work, it enlightens me a great deal more about what I'd read. To this end, I have to applaud all of those who put on the plays and make the movies. At the same time, I would never suggest one skip the reading and rely solely upon these other presentations: I hope I have shown how dangerous this could be for one's understanding of Shakespeare.
Imagine a world where everyone thinks Othello is a basketball playing date rapist, where everyone thinks Tybalt and Benvolio are gunslingers and Polonius is that guy from Ghostbusters. While these films can not and should not ever take the role of substitute for Shakespeare's plays, we should all be open to seeing them as a new way to perceive old friends and to appreciate them for the works they hold at their heart.
Works Cited
10 Things I Hate About You. Dir. Gil Junger. Perf. Julia
Styles, Heath Ledger, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Touchstone, 1999.
Hamlet. Dir. Michael Almereyda. Perf. Ethan Hawke, Julia
Styles, and Bill Murray. Miramax, 2000.
O. Dir. Tim Blake Nelson. Perf. Mekhi Phifer, Julia Stiles,
Josh Hartnett, and Rain Phoenix. Lions Gate, 2001.
Romeo & Juliet. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio,
Claire Danes, John Leguizamo. 20th Century Fox, 1996.
Shakespeare, William. "The Most Excellent and Lamentable
Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet." Norton Shakespeare. New
York: 1997. pp. 865-942.
--. "The Taming of the Shrew." The Norton Shakespeare. New
York: 1997. pp. 133-202.
--. "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of
Denmark." The Norton Shakespeare. New York: 1997. pp.
1659-1756.
--. "The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of
Venice." The Norton Shakespeare. New York: 1997. pp.
2091-2174.
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