The Challenge of Shakespeare

Shakespeare and the Film By Roger Manvell

Praeger, 172 pp., $10 The first Shakespeare on film wasn’t Shakespeare at all. It was Beerbohm Tree in King John, on the London Enbankment signing the Magna Carta—a few flickering frames of silent film shot in 1899 of a scene that Tree had interpolated into the production of the play. Tree’s extravagant productions were something of a joke with the generations that came after him. Though he tried to create for his theatrical works a kind of immortality through short silent films—the opening of his production of The Tempest was tinted blue for effect, an early stab at technicolor— Tree came to be the symbol of production overkill. Too lush, too grandiloquent for those producers who followed him. Yet he was a popular and vital Shakespearean of his time, even when he hesitatingly and then with increasing enthusiasm carried the Bard—Edwardian baroque stage sets and all— into the cinema.

RC

About the Author

Richmond Crinkley

Featured Tags

Shakespeare and the Film By Roger Manvell

Praeger, 172 pp., $10 The first Shakespeare on film wasn’t Shakespeare at all. It was Beerbohm Tree in King John, on the London Enbankment signing the Magna Carta—a few flickering frames of silent film shot in 1899 of a scene that Tree had interpolated into the production of the play. Tree’s extravagant productions were something of a joke with the generations that came after him. Though he tried to create for his theatrical works a kind of immortality through short silent films—the opening of his production of The Tempest was tinted blue for effect, an early stab at technicolor— Tree came to be the symbol of production overkill. Too lush, too grandiloquent for those producers who followed him. Yet he was a popular and vital Shakespearean of his time, even when he hesitatingly and then with increasing enthusiasm carried the Bard—Edwardian baroque stage sets and all— into the cinema.