Shakespeare on Film: What to Cut and What to Keep without Putting Us to Sleep
This session examines the unique challenges in the process of adapting Shakespeare’s plays to the screen: How best to edit the script in such a way that it satisfies the needs of a movie script and yet at the same time is faithful to the beauty and imagery of the Bard’s famous poetry and tells an interesting, rip-roaring story. For example; comparison could be made between the Mel Gibson/Zefferelli HAMLET (which contained interesting scene re-juxtapositions but at the same time cut the play to very ribbons, not even sparing some very famous speeches) compared to the fast and furious hip South Beach/Mardi Gras feel of the Leonardo DiCaprio/Claire Danes’ “SHAKESPEARE’S R + J” to the unutterably pretentious and far too long (and yet welcome to have such a thing exist) version of Hamlet, produced, directed by and starring Kenneth Brannagh. By July 5, 2010, please send one-page abstracts along with a short C.V., including complete contact information and affiliation, to Herb Parker, East Tennessee State University, at parkerh@etsu.edu.
