My Own Private Idaho with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves is a loose adaptation of the Henry IV plays.
Modern Henry IV.
Modern Love’s Labour Lost.
Modern The Tempest.
Modern Orpheus (white).
Modern Orpheus (black).
Modern Cyrano de Bergerac.
Semi-modern Electra.
Modern Medea.
Modern Ulysses (Irish).
Modern Ulysses (American).
Modern Gospel of Matthew.
A Thousand Acres is a loose adaptation of King Lear.
An 80s classic, Valley Girl, is very loosely based on Romeo and Juliet.
Propero’s Books is Peter Greenaway’s verison of The Tempest. Although, Greenaway is often considred one of those love-him-or-hate-him kind of directors. You’ll either find it brilliant or you’ll prefer to jab a pencil in your eye (eraser end first).
Oh, and who did that Fasut with the wooden puppets. The Czech director…
Ah, it was Jan Svankmajer’s Faust that I was thinking of. Marionettes running amok to totally mess with your head.
Weird. An some might fight it unpalatable due to its unusual style.
Let’s not forget Tromeo and Juliet. The only Shakepeare adaption to feature an opening monologue by Lemmy from Motorhead. :eek:
Anyone ever see “Joe Macbeth”? It’s a British film from the 50’s starring Paul Douglas and Ruth Roman as the murderous pair. Saw it years ago, and it’s as dark and brooding as the original. Are there not a lot of remakes of “Macbeth”? I guess you can only tell that story one way.
Can’t believe “Forbidden Planet” hasn’t been brought up. Touted as a remake of “The Tempest”, another relic from the 50’s.
For a modern day Les Liasons Dangereaux, try [url=“http://imdb.com/title/tt0139134/”]Cruel Intentions*.
For a modern day Les Liasons Dangereux, try Cruel Intentions :smack:
Actually, the obvious Shakespeare comparison to that aspect of the plot isn’t to Hamlet but to the Henry IV plays, since Prince Hal (the future Henry V) spends much of them slacking off in taverns, until his father dies and Hal turns over a new leaf. Of course, this was his plan all along, and the slackerness was all a PR stunt. (So he tells the audience, anyway. ;))
There’s an article out there called “The Trans-Textuality of Kevin Kline’s Bottom.” I love that. It sounds like the sort of thing I would come up with.
I think most people have covered the modern-dress Shakespeare plays that spring to mind most readily. Derek Jarman did a film version of Marlowe’s Edward II that is…interesting, but extremely weird (and definitely not for the squeamish). As far as stuff originally aired on PBS goes, they’ve broadcast Trevor Nunn’s production of The Merchant of Venice, done in a 1920s-30s setting – it’s a film of a stage production, but is very well-done. (I saw it on stage in London, actually, and it was quite brilliant.)
I have seen Ran, well I own it, and yes it is King Lear set in medival Japan and it is wonderful.
My favorite traditional (not modernized) telling of Shakespeare on film is Twlefth Night, starring Helena Bonham Carter, Nigel Hawthorne, and Ben Kingsley.
Now, I’m hardly an expert, but these costumes don’t look 16th century to me. More 18th-19th, I think. It’s a modernized version of the play, just not modern day.
And late 19th, at that. (You are correct, sez costumer chick.)
Although I must, because I am such a costume geek, point out that Shakespear’s company only used 16th century clothing in his plays because that’s when he was putting them on, and that’s what you did back them. Many of them didn’t take place in the 16th century, but they were all “modernized” in look to roughly his era. Saved on wardrobe costs in a time when clothes were hideously expensive - especially elaborate theater clothes - becaise they’d reuse wardrobe between productions. Juliet’s gown may have become Ophelia’s (or vice-versa, I forget which came first). So even a 16th century Shakespearian costume may be “modernized” in the strictest sense.
Not Shakespeare, but Bridget Jones’s Diary is based on Pride and Prejudice.
:eek: Well, don’t I feel like a dolt. Never noticed that. Not even when Firth’s character is named…Mr. Darcy! :smack: That’s it, my girlgeeek badge must be revoked.
:smack: I knew that! Really! When I posted, I was just thinking about the fact that it’s not set in the present day. :smack: :smack:
There were occasional exceptions, such as the leading characters wearing togas in Julius Caesar.
I’ll add a vote for Mel Gibson’s Hamlet and Akira Kurosawa’s Ran and add The Throne of Blood which is a Japanese Samurai version of Macbeth. And don’t forget Forbidden Planet which is of course The Tempest in space.
Of course, there’s also a reference to Caesar wearing a doublet: “Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common herd was glad he refused the crown, he plucked me ope his doublet and offered them his throat to cut” (1.2.263-6). A contemporary drawing of a scene from Titus Andronicus suggests that the Roman plays were done in a combination of classical and contemporary dress. In general, though, it’s believed the comedies, tragedies, and English histories would have been done in the dress of Shakespeare’s day, which was probably the case (as I recall) at least well into the eighteenth century. In the eighteenth and especially nineteenth centuries, Shakespeare’s era had become considerably more temporally distant, so the trend was to do “historicist” productions – not just in Elizabethan costume, but also, say, Macbeth in medieval Scottish garb or Henry V in fifteenth-century dress. Some productions got really elaborate about their realistic settings, often at the expense of the text.