Customer Reviews

Shakespeare on Film

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The author gives a very in-depth and insightful discussion of film adaptations of Shakespeare. Buchanan also covers well the theoretical issue of adapting a script written for the theater to cinema: theater and film are different mediums with different tools of expression, and Buchanan is highly sensitive to these differences. Most books on this subject consist merely of quick and dirty summaries of popular films. Buchanan, on the other hand, gives detailed and scholarly analysis by a professor of film in England. I especially liked the analysis of silent film Shakespeare; in fact, Buchanan really helped me to understand and appreciate these works. Rather than trying to review the entire field of Shakespeare films, she gives detailed and in-depth analysis of selected topics. There is a an excellent chapter on the Japanese director's Akira Kurosawa's excellent Shakespeare films; another on Kenneth Branagh's works, Hollywood revisions of Shakespeare such as Forbidden Planet (The Tempest), versions of Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, and finally self-referential Shakespeare films such as Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books and Julie Taymor's Titus. The discussion of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo+Juliet is especially brilliant. I would have liked to see discussions of great Shakespeare directors Orsen Welles, Franco Zeffrelli, and their films, but you can't have everything. The writing, btw, is scholarly and learned but still very clear--a model of academic writing. And the price, for an academic textbook, is very affordable. Kudos to Judith Buchanan, Longman publishers, and their excellent "inside film" series!

I decided to assign this book for my class, Shakespeare on Film, and am satisfied with it. This is a good overview of how Shakespeare's plays have been adapted to film, and is clearly written. The coverage is excellent.