The Reel Shakespeare: Alternative Cinema And Theory

The Reel Shakespeare: Alternative Cinema and Theory models an approach to Shakespeare and cinema that is concerned with the "other" side of Shakespeare's Hollywood celebrity, taking the reader on a practical and theoretical tour through important, non-mainstream films and the oppositional messages they convey. This volume attempts to "escape from Hollywood" and the restricted range of meanings it brings to the phenomenon of Shakespearean adaptation, examining instead the marginal, radical, and experimental uses to which Shakespeare has been put in twentieth-century film culture through four areas of inquiry: "Art of Film: Shakespeare and Early Cinema, " "Film of Art: Shakespeare and Avant-Garde Cinema, " "Film on the Edge: Shakespeare and Counter-Cinema, " and "Film in Class: Shakespearean Cinema and Radical Pedagogy." Along with an introduction that traces the role of Shakespeare in the history of alternative cinema, two articles on the use of Shakespearean film in the radical classroom, and a selective bibliography, the collection includes essays on early silent adaptations of Hamlet, Greenway's Prospero's Books, Godard's King Lear, Hall's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Taymor's Titus, Polanski's Macbeth, Welles' Chimes at Midnight, and Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho.