Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Screen
- Cambridge Companions to Literature
- The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Screen
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Preface
- Note on References
- Introduction
- Part I Adaptation and Its Contexts
- Part II Genres and Plays
- 5 The Comedies
- 6 The Environments of Tragedy on Screen: Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth
- 7 Two Tragedies of Love: Romeo and Juliet and Othello
- 8 ‘Sad Stories of the Death of Kings’: The Hollow Crown and the Shakespearean History Play on Screen
- 9 The Roman Plays on Film
- 10 Screening Shakespearean Fantasy and Romance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest
- Part III Critical Issues
- Part IV Directors
- Further Reading
- Filmography
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
10 - Screening Shakespearean Fantasy and Romance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest
from Part II - Genres and Plays
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2020
- The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Screen
- Cambridge Companions to Literature
- The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Screen
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Preface
- Note on References
- Introduction
- Part I Adaptation and Its Contexts
- Part II Genres and Plays
- 5 The Comedies
- 6 The Environments of Tragedy on Screen: Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth
- 7 Two Tragedies of Love: Romeo and Juliet and Othello
- 8 ‘Sad Stories of the Death of Kings’: The Hollow Crown and the Shakespearean History Play on Screen
- 9 The Roman Plays on Film
- 10 Screening Shakespearean Fantasy and Romance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest
- Part III Critical Issues
- Part IV Directors
- Further Reading
- Filmography
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
Summary
This chapter explores representations of fantasy and romance in Anglo-American screen productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest. It is particularly concerned with how filmmakers of these plays make the fantastical and the romantic believable yet sufficiently otherworldly. Films of A Midsummer Night’s Dream discussed include those by directors Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle (1935), Peter Hall (1968), Adrian Noble (1996), and Michael Hoffman (1999). Each uses numerous elements from the cinematic toolbox to create plausible versions of Shakespeare’s faerie world. Films of The Tempest considered include those by Derek Jarman (1979) and Julie Taymor (2010). Airy spirit that he is, Ariel in The Tempest is kin to the fairies of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Thus directors of The Tempest are faced with similar challenges of crafting verisimilitude as their counterparts face working on A Midsummer Night’s Dream; each meets those challenges with their idiosyncratic aplomb that does justice to Shakespeare.
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- The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Screen , pp. 134 - 146Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020