Friday, September 26, 2008

Some recent Shakespeare films

I'm off to see The Taming of the Shrew at the Stratford Festival in Canada this weekend, and the plan on the bus is to watch the ever enjoyable 1999 film 10 Things I Hate About You, which is, of course, an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew.

Because I like lists, I've compiled a short, admittedly far-from-complete list of recent film adaptations of Shakespeare. (Please feel free to add films in the the comments, but note that there's a whole lot before 1989 that I've not even tried to touch, and I've likewise totally neglected international films.)

Re-imaginings (adaptations)
  • 10 Things I Hate About You—1999
    The Taming of the Shrew as a teen comedy
    Gil Junger, director
    Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger

  • Titus—1999
    Titus Andronicus as, um, yeah
    Julie Taymor, director
    Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Lange

  • O—2001
    Othello as a teen basketball tragedy
    Tim Blake Nelson, director
    Julia Stiles, Josh Hartnett, Mekhi Phifer

  • Scotland, Pa—2002
    Macbeth as the owner of a small-town diner
    Billy Morrissette, director
    Christopher Walken, Maura Tierney

  • She's the Man—2006
    Twelfth Night as a teen comedy
    Andy Fickman, director
    Amanda Bynes


Re-settings
  • Richard III—1995
    Richard III as a British fascist in the 1930s
    Richard Loncraine, director
    Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Robert Downey Jr.

  • Romeo+Juliet—1996
    Shakespeare with guns and Hawaiian shirts
    Baz Luhrmann, director
    Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes

  • A Midsummer Night's Dream—1999
    Fin de siècle impishness in Italy
    Michael Hoffman, director
    Rupert Everett, Calista Flockhart

  • Hamlet—2000
    Hamlet as an indie filmmaker
    Michael Almereyda, director
    Ethan Hawke, Julia Stiles


Other strangeness
  • Looking for Richard—1996
    Al Pacino documentary on staging Richard III

  • Shakespeare in Love—1998
    You all know this one, right?


Kenneth Branagh
  • Henry V—1989

  • Much Ado About Nothing—1993

  • Othello—1995 (Oliver Parker, director)

  • Hamlet—1996

  • Love's Labour's Lost—2000

  • As You Like It—2006

2 comments:

Andrew said...

Twelfth Night - Directed by Trevor Nunn with Ben Kingsley as Feste - 1996

Theresa said...

1. Jealous of your Stratford Fest attendance.
2. I remember seeing that Hamlet at Well's Hall, MSU.
3. Does liking Shakespeare in Love make me a bad person?