Shakespeare at the Cineplex: The Kenneth Branagh Era

by Samuel Crowl

Samuel Crowl’s Shakespeare at the The Kenneth Branagh Era is the first thorough exploration of the fifteen major Shakespeare films released since the surprising success of Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V (1989). Crowl presents the rich variety of these films in the “long between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.” The productions range from Hollywood-saturated films such as Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet and Michael Hoffman’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to more modest, experimental offerings, such as Christine Edzard’s As You Like It . Now available in paperback, Shakespeare at the Cineplex will be welcome reading for fans, students, and scholars of Shakespeare in performance.

Genres: Shakespeare

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Stephanie Phillips · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting essays about the Shakespearean films made throughout the ‘90s. Perhaps predictably, the essays are more engaging depending on the reader’s familiarity with the film being discussed.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not a film student. I'm English lit. person. I feel I should point this out before my review. Shakespeare at the Cineplex is not a bad book, but there is not much wisdom, at least in for the literature student, in there. Crowl does talk about the use of camera angles and such, so I suppose if I were a film student I would find it fascinating, but I'm not. The book mostly told me things I already knew.

Part of the problem is that Crowl refers to stage performances that the movies in some cases are drawn from, but he does not do a good job of describing these actual stage performances. He tries, but he does not do it well. I also found his comments on Branagh's Hamlet to be lacking. It's true that Branagh draws from Hollywood, but his Hamlet is also likely influenced by What Happens in Hamlet, yet Crowl does not mention the book.

There is some humor. Crowl describes teenage fans of DiCaprio as screaming like weasels in heat. Crowl also made me want to watch Zeffirelli's Hamlet, the one with Gibson, again. I actually found that chapter to be the most informative one.