On the Bard’s 450th Birthday: Our 5 Favorite
Shakespearean Film Adaptations
It’s been 450
years since Shakespeare’s birth, yet his impact on pop culture shows no sign of
diminishing. (Case in point: The books in our Twisted Lit series from Merit
Press are modern adaptations of his plays!) As devout fans of Shakespeare,
we’ll tune in to just about anything that bears the mark of the Bard. It isn’t
easy to narrow it down to just five of our favorites, but here’s our best attempt.
1. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead,
written and directed by Tom Stoppard
Originally
conceived as a stage play, R&G probably
wins for most creative adaptation. Two minor characters from Hamlet are at the forefront of this
darkly hilarious existential look at fate, with Shakespeare’s play co-existing
within the movie and driving the plot. (It’s so meta.)
2. Romeo + Juliet, directed by Baz Luhrmann
This modernized
1996 flick starring Leo DiCaprio and Claire Danes is all kinds of crazy
brilliant, featuring Shakespeare’s original dialogue alongside a musical number
by Mercutio; gun-toting, ultra-stylish gangs; and Paul Rudd as Paris dressed in
an astronaut suit. Somehow, it all works.
3. Much Ado About Nothing, directed by
Kenneth Branagh
Branagh and his
then wife, Emma Thompson, star alongside Kate Beckinsale, and Denzel Washington
in this film adaptation, which is near and dear to our hearts. Branagh made
some unconventional choices (like giving Keanu Reeves a major role as the
villainous Don John), but he wound up with a movie that is incredibly endearing
and lovely to look at. Personally, we have always found the treatment of the
heroine Hero hard to watch in any production, but if you can ignore the
Elizabethan misogyny, we think you’ll love this movie.
4. Romeo and Juliet, directed by Franco
Zeffirelli
You may have seen
this popular adaptation from 1968 in your high school English class, but if
not, you’ll want to put it in your viewing queue. This is a traditional
rendering filmed in Italy with period costumes and music. It’s also the first
production of the play to use actors closest in age to the characters of Romeo
and Juliet; Actor Leonard Whiting (Romeo) was seventeen and actress Olivia
Hussey (Juliet), sixteen. To say we love this movie would be an understatement.
(Kim even has the vintage movie poster hanging in her bedroom.)
5. Hamlet, directed by Laurence Olivier
As far as we’re
concerned it would anathema to have a list of Shakespeare adaptations without
including this 1948 black and white film, directed by and starring British
Shakespearean actor Laurence Olivier. This was the first non-American film to
win Best Picture, and Olivier (41 when the film was released) was the first
actor to direct himself to a best actor Academy Award.
And as a bonus,
we’re going to go way out in left field and recommend the strange, but
entertaining 1982 adaptation of The
Tempest directed by Paul Mazursky and starring a pre-Sixteen Candles Molly Ringwald as Miranda.
About Anyone But
You
Two Italian
restaurants, both alike in dignity, in Chicago’s Little Italy where we lay our
scene... After her family’s struggling eatery, Cap’s, falls prey to another of
the Monte clan’s vicious and destructive pranks, sixteen-year-old Gigi Caputo
finds herself courting danger during a clandestine encounter with Roman Monte,
the very boy whose relatives have brought her family such grief. When the
daughter and son of these two warring factions fall for each other, their quest
to mend this bitter family feud turns out to be a recipe for disaster. Their
story is irrevocably linked to the summer of 1933, when two twelve-year-olds,
Benny and Nick, hop the turnstile at the Chicago World’s Fair. While enjoying
some of the fair’s legendary amusements, Nick has a “love at first sight”
encounter with Stella, a young girl who unintentionally causes a lasting rift
between the two boyhood pals. Deftly winding its way through past and present
day, this modern take on Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet has much to do with
hate — but more with love.
About the Authors
Amy Helmes and Kim
Askew are the authors of the Shakespeare-inspired YA series Twisted Lit from
Merit Press. For Amy and Kim’s own take on Romeo
and Juliet, check out their most recent novel, Anyone But You, which USA
Today called “heartbreakingly lovely.” For more about the books in their
Twisted Lit series, including their spins on The Tempest and Macbeth,
check out twistedlitbooks.com. You can also follow them
on twitter @kaskew and @amyhelmes.
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