english drama Flashcards
shakespeare in movie history
No writer has contributed more in cinema than Shakespeare: 26 Shakespeare films, 30 Academy Awards, 84 nominations -> phenomum -> Shakespeare DNA in cinema
Before the birth of Hollywood Cinema in 1915 with “birth of a nation” there were Two- Reelers of S. plays (= recorded in theatre and no sound)
-1912: Richard III: first S. feature film
After the big crisis of great depression [1929], in the 30’s, arrival of sound (musical movies and gangster movies)
- > cinema turned to classicals (Oliver Twist, Whuthering Heights)
- > Shakespeare was Status Symbol (great prestige for actors and studios)
- 1929: the teming of the shrew: first Shakespeare’s half silent, half talking movie (Mary Pickford)
Golden Age of HW: 30’s, with the arrival of sound, silent actors were cut off.
- 1935: Midsummer Night’s Dream movie after theatrical play of Max Reinhart
- 1936: Romeo and Juliet by Cuckor with married couple of actors Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer
40’s
- 1944: Henry V by Olivier
- 1948: Macbeth by Orson Welles as actor and director
- 1948: Hamlet by Olivier as actor and director
50’s
- 1952: Othello by Orson Welles
- 1953: Julius Ceasar by Manikiewicz with Marlon Brando
- 1955 Othello by Olivier
60’s
- 1961: Macbeth with Sean Connery
- 1965: Chimes at Midnight (USA) / Falstaff (Eu) by Orson Welles: collage of different plays (Henry IV pt1 and pt2, Richard II, Henry V, the mery wifes of Windsor).
- > centred on the figure of Falstaff: tragic/comic fat, vain, boastful, cowardy knight speding money on food and women, present in 3 plays
- 1967: Taming of the Shrew by Zeffirelli with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
- 1968: Romeo and Juliet by Zeffirelli
Shakespeare renaissance
from the 60’s until the 90s few Shakespeare movies [1986: Othello by Zeffirelli]
- 1990: hamlet by zeffirelli with Mel Gibson with Carmina Burana
- 1989: Henry V by Branagh (directorial debut) won an Oscar, homage to Welles with Falstaff, important actors (Judi Dench, Emma Thompson..)
- 1993: Much ado about nothing by Branagh
- 1995: Othello by Parker: first movie with a Black actor
- 1995: Richard III by Loncraine (adapted in fascist times)
- 1996: Romeo + Juliet by Luhrmann
- 1996: Hamlet by Branagh
- 1998: Shakespeare in Love by Madden*: based on the life of Shakespeare and on true rehalsals
- 2000: Hamlet 2000 by Almereyda
Shakespeare in Backstage: movies that don’t display a work by Shakespeare but what happened behind the scenes in the shakesperian backstage
- 1944: Henry V by Olivier: elizabethina theatre shown
- 1945: to be or not to be by Cuckor: parody of Hiltler (he germanized S)
- 1947: a double life by Cuckor
- 1956: Forbidden Planet by Wilcox: science fiction film based on the Tempest
- 1983: To be or not to be by Mel Brooks
- 1998 Shakespeare in Love*
Shakespeare in Musicals: many S plays have and had music also in the Elizabethian theatre
- 1940: the boys from Siracuse by Sutherland, based on the comedy of errors
- 1953: Kiss me Kate by Sideny based on the Taming of the Shrew
- 1961: west side story by Wise and Robbins based on a musical play, based on Romeo and Juliet
Olivier filmography
Most famous British stage actors in Shakespeare theater and cinema, along with Ralph Richardson and sir Arthur John Gielguld
There’s a great transatlantic movement concerning Shakespeare between USA and Britain
- Orson Welles versus Lorence Olivier
- 1944: Henry V
- 1955 Othello
1948 HAMLET (noir movie)
- first sound film of the play
- second Shakespeare movie by Olivier
- soliloquy and voice over
- soliloquy to be or not to be: theatrical (dagger falling into the ocean as a metaphor: theatrical part is dead) parts vs cinematic parts (close-ups an internal voice)
- his movie is based on 40’s - 50’s noir movies that had gothic elements (ie Rebecca by Hitchcock): the fog, the sea, he cliff, looked up to Hichcock (more importance to the setting other than the characters)
- no blood, Production Code prevented to display blood and dead people
- physical component (fighting and diloague with mother)
- closely follows the pattern of the story
- no Rosengratz and Guildersten
- “this is the tragedy of a man who couldn’t make up his mind”
- more internal, psychoanalytic view of hamlet (all monologues in voice over in her mind)
- father’s murder shown
- Ophelia and hamlet pretended madness is not so stressed
- the cutting of Fortinbras is linked to the rise of the nazi regime and suggest the circular pattern of history doomed to be repeated if we don’t do anything
Branagh filmography
- 1989 Henry V
- 1993 Much Ado About Nothing
1996 HAMLET (epic movie)
- international cast
- setting transported in the 19th century
- nomination for best-adapted screenplay
- unabridged film version
- visual, use of many flashbacks and scenes shown not taled (killing and love scene with Ophelia)
1. Ophelia’s drawing
2. hamlet’s sea and voyage
3. flashback on love scene of ophelia and hamlet
4. Priam and Hecuba
5. claudius poisoning - based on ghost and Claudius, no oedipal complex, closet scene with geltrude is chaste
- hamlet is political
- it’s an epic movie because is full text, because is full of flashbacks that enhance the past and the statue of Hmalet as the symbol of danmark and epic fortinbras invasion (more important that then fighting with laertes)
- great importance given to fortinbras
Almereyeda
HAMLET 2000 (indie/metacinematic movie)
is a modern adaptaion with a strong component of technology and commercial cinema set in Manhattan
- hamlet is turned into a young filmmaker
- Elsinore castel: headquarters of Denmark corp.
- trapmouse: video montage
- Ophelia’s flowers: photos of the flowers
- Ophelia drowns in a fountain, not in river
- Leartes poisoned sword is a gun
- to be or not to be as a buddist teaching seen by hamlet that triggers his own mologue
- Marcellus became Marcella, Horatio’s girlfriend
- Ophelia has a hidden mic to spy on Hamlet
- is more concentrated on Ophelia and Hamlet love story, shifting the ghost appearance at the middle instead of beginning
- updated version with the same words (intact and unabridged texts with cuts)
- keeps the Shakespearean dialogue but presents a modern setting, with technology such as video cameras, Polaroid cameras, and surveillance bugs. For example, the ghost of Hamlet’s murdered father first appears on closed-circuit TV.
- the director wanted to give a distilled version of the play, by minimizing but getting the gist of the play
- Hamlet is very young (different from Olivier and Branagh) to emphasise young men’s life which is full of dilemmas
- metacinamtographical elements: contemporary reality of young adults, H’ interiority is understood trough videos he manipulates
- metacinema: video/film within the play/film
zeffirelli filmography
- 1967: Taming of the Shrew
shakespirelli: shakespeare matched with Italian renaissance (Italianization od Shakespeare)
1968: ROMEO AND JULIET
- most successful adaptation
- oscar oft cinematography and costume design
- nominated or best picture and best director
- first time to have actor close to the age the original screenplay
- Italian-British production
- music by Rota, great use of music (used in those times) “what is a youth”
- Olivier spoke in the prologue as voice-over (homenage)
- very traditional adaptation (costume/period film)
- some lines cut
- concentrated on the main characters and shaped the roles on the young actors to make the characters less complex
- shakespirelli: shakespeare matched with Italian renaissance (Italianization od Shakespeare)
1990 HAMLET (action movie)
- mainstream movie, appealing for young adults more action and the choice of famous action movies actors (Mel Gibson, Glen Close)
- more focus on Polonius and on the women, in particular, Geltrude and her physical relationship with her son
- madness emphasised (much more space to Ophelia)
- more action: shown death of Guilderstan and rosencrantz and of Ophelia
- hamlet is not portrayed as a wannabe actor and suicidal
- cut more than 2/3 (kept 23%) but in an intelligent way: more linear development of the story
- cut the ghost and out of 7 monologues, kept 1 integral, one completely erased and 5 kept half
- > zeffirelli cut the soliloquies and dialogues to interlude action
- less colorful than the others, more gray and suicidal
Luhrmann
1996 ROMEO + JULIET
- transported in New York and Verona beach
- Contemporary play with ancient text
- contemporary remake
- great use of themesong
- use of water as a leitmotiv: first looks through the aquarium, Romeo falls in the swimming pool, they stay underwater to escape camera’s surveillance
- shorted text, especially Juliet
- modern dress adaptation that isolates juliet and romeo from the crass, violent society of verona beach. they are dressed as a kinght and angel while all the others as allusive and provocative
close relationship between music and cinema
MTV was founded in the 80s with the aim of being a tv channel showing only videos. it then became pouplar in the 90s (arrival in Europe) and in the 2000s with other tv programs. To accompany the new sounds that were appearing on MTV, a new form of music videos came about: more artistic, experimental, and technically-accomplished than those of the 1980s.
- teen movie marked by pop soundtrack: in order to make the play appealing to the young audiences, the emphasis must be on provoking a sense of novelty, even of capturing a teen sensibility (link to West Side Story)
- The film was a hit by teenage audiences, despite the potential of its language to alienate or deter them.
- The success of the film is due to the contemporary style contemporaneity thanks to the music score
- References to MTV commercial and pop music video style are restless moving shots, zooms and swish pans of, at times, less than a second’s length, Cuts between characters mid-speech, Cinematically unconventional montages, the pace is accelerated by almost even comedic, use of speeded up footage (Capulet household’s preparation for the ball)
- it’s global as MTV is, having many multi-ethinic and supranational elements
buz luhrmann style:
- ‘Theater, circus, film
- Theatrical and chaotic, yet surprisingly profound and perceptive, he has realized stunning classics
Theatre and cinema differences
- Theatrical space is not defined by lines, must be filled with words, things and descriptions
- Theatre is dialogue, cinema is action
-> few plays were adapted into films because there’s a great difference.
Few good ones:
- the king’s speech
- my big fat Greek wedding
Plays are not greatly adapted or successful as non adapted movies, EXPECT SHAKESPEARE
- > musicals are a little bit better adapted rather then plays
- la la land
- mamma Mia
- Jesus Christ superstar
Writing means rewriting
Great stories often have archetypes and myths only the story changes but the structure is the same
(Titanic: Romeo and Juliet on a ocean liner)
shakespeare and the elizabethian theater
SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)
English drama begins with Shakespeare (Elizabethian Theatre)
we know his place because we have the first folio: first printed edition of Shakespeare’ artworks put together by his fellow actors
-> I 36 plays divided in histories, comedies, tragedies. History where the new income, they didn’t exist before.
-> first jubilee of Shakespeare in 1769
- wide use of the iamic pentameter (line of verse with five metrical feet (one short one long syllable) [. _]
- Shakespeare’s plays were performed in playhouses, with elaborate scenery, and staged with music, dancing, thunder, lightning, wave machines, and fireworks. During this time the texts were “reformed” and “improved” for the stage, an undertaking which has seemed shockingly disrespectful to posterity.
Victorian productions of Shakespeare often sought pictorial effects in “authentic” historical costumes and sets
Shakesperian theatre:
- Circular amphitheater, performances in the afternoon
- most important: Globe, the Rose, the curtain
- theaters were builds outside the main city, where the laws of the city couldn’t be applied, such as (the Rose, the Swan, the Globe in the south of river Thames)
- first theatre 1576 The Theatre
- public ones: the Swan, the Fortune, the red bar, the Hope
- private: Black Friars, White friars, the cockpit
- globe symbol: Atlante or Hercules caring the world with a quote from Latin “totus mundus agit istrionem” (=l’istrione agita tutto il mondo, the world’s a stage)
- in theater, poor audience in public under the stage (low paid, crowded and filthy), rich ones in court areas (high prized, few chairs, cushions)
- Theater had other forms of entertainment: bear/dog battles, dogs battles, bull, and bear-baiting, cockfights
- costumes: very important and the most expensive thing owned by the company. They bought it from dead lords’ robes left to the servants who couldn’t wear the cause in those times there were strict rules on clothing based on classes
star actors in Shakespeare times:
- Marlow: who is the most important writer before Shakespeare, he invented a star system that brought crowds theaters. He was in competition with Shakespeare
shakespeare as a director
- the plays were prepared in one or two weeks
- the play was written while the actors were rehearsing and were performed once or twice
- no Director, Shakespeare directed the actors about lines and actions, resulting in a great realism in performances
- Shakespeare was an actor too, even if it wasn’t a good one this helped his understanding and what the audience liked
- Shakespeare uses chorus, prologue, epilogue
ie. tragedies such Romeo and Juliet have chorus
ie. commedies such as The Tempest, Midsummer nights dream, as you like it, the 12th night, all’s well that ends well have epigolgues
(the chorus was meant to convince the audience to use their imagination in order to fully follow the play)
Shakespeare sources are form
- Italian tales
- school days
- Plutarch and Ovidio for histories
Literary context:
A. Elizabethian theatre: comes from medieval morality plays (struggle between virtue and vice = mankind is contended between god and devil
B. Strong moral given by the narration of the rise and fall of great man
C. Wheel of fortune: in a circle, life of a men goes from success (zenith ponti) to death (nadir) = pattern of rise and fall
D. Seneca’s tragedies: blood, tragedies, bloody incidents, destiny, supernatural, cruel tyrant
+ monologue and soliloquy
Hamlet
Hamlet is the first modern hero: deep psychological issues (full of indecision’s and melancholy)
-> oscillates between wisdoms and madness, love and hate, Valor and cowardice
versions
- first quarto (Q1): the tragicall historie of Hamlet, prince of Denmarke (half text)
- second quarto (Q2): “ (longer than Q1 but fewer lines
- first folio (F1): the tragedie of Hamlet, prince of Denmarke (first complete edition)
Themes
- revenge:
- revenge was an important trait in S’s times
- revenge plays were popular in the English Renaissance
- stated in act 1 and 4 - Play within the play: the dumbshow is a subtle action to catch his uncle
“The play is the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king” - Acting: hamlet is a bit of an actor too, a wannabe actor , he sets up the play and pretends to be mad
- The ghost: embodies the theme of revenge
- Secrecy and spying: everybody spies on somebody else. Everybody keeps secrets
- > Polonius spies on Hamlet through Guildersten and Rosencrantz
- > Polonius spies on Laertes through Reynaldo
- > Polonius spies on Hamlet’s speech with his mother
- > Polonius, mother and Claudius spy on Hamlet though Ophelia - madness: Ophelia’s madness is different from Hamlet’s one. Ophelia is really mad by loss and loveache, hamlet is pretending
- Love: Ophelia embodies Love
Sources
- Garboduc for the structure: was the source of King Lear and was the first to have blank verse, 5 acts, scenes division
- > Shakespeare used a cinematic view of time, space and action - Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy: blood and violence set in Italy o Spain, with fighting on stage. Considered the first revenge play
- > developed from the senecan model: stories based on the protagonist’s revenge, difficulties overcome with strategy, featuring a bad tyrant of Machiavellian characteristics
- > had the play within the play
- > on stage enters and prologue/chorus
- > ghost - Hero-as- fool story: folklore Indo-European story where the hero pretends to be a fool
- Gesta danorum: 12th century work thst contains the legend of Amleth (= means mad or not the same in Norse)
- > french translation of it “Historie Tragique”
- > differences in Amleth: king is killed by fist brother. First brother marries the queen, have a kid, amleth. Second brother kills the first and marries the queen. Amelth is crowned king and marries the princess of England
dumbshow (old mute/silent/mimic play)
1 enter queen and king
2 relationship stated. 1 act
3 queen loves King
4 another man
5 intentions stated 2 act
6 killing of the king
7 Queen returns and weeps
8 Condole queen 3 act
9 dead body carried away
10 new love finale
-> in the movies
Olivier: silent movie, strong reaction of the crowd
Zeffirelli: half show
Almereyda: video, film within the film “the moustrap, tragedy by hamlet”
branagh: flashbacks to the killing
geltrude character is enigmatic, and can be seen as passive but she is direct and insightful
- does her mother know about the killing?
- does her mother know about the poison?
Story
Hamlet begins with the revealing of the ghost. The royal family is intertwined with the councillor’a family
Division
3 macrostructures
1^ macro sequence: act 1 = prologue and hero’s problem
2^ macro sequence: act 2 (s.1) to act 4 (s.3/4) = obstacles, crisis, near end of the hero
3^ macro sequence: aft 4 (s.5) to end = final confrontation and resolution through catharsis (purification, everybody dies)
Further division
1^ macro sequence
2^ macro sequence
-> microsequence 1: act 2
-> microsequence 2: from act 3 (s.1) to act 4 (s.3)
3^ macro sequence
-> microsequence 1: from act 4 (s.5) to act 4 (s.7)
-> microsequence 2: act 5
Division by themes:
1^ macro sequence: two families (royals and Peasant) stated and relationships
2^ macro sequence:
-> microsequence 1: all about hamlet
-> microsequence 2: spying + people trying to understand hamlet’s mind + dumbshow
————————> centrifugal force of act 3 s.2
3^ macro sequence
-> microsequence 1: funeral
-> microsequence 2: fighting
Time sequence
1^ macrosequence: from midnight to midnight and then dawn
|
Several days
|
2^ macrosequence: two consecutive days
|
Several days/weeks
|
3^ macro sequence: two consecutive days
cinema adaptations
a) wide range of choices in the adaptation because some things are not stated
- is Ophelia there while Hamlet says the soliloquy?
- Shakespeare presents Hamlet’s and Gertrude’s relationship as a crucial factor for the plot of the play. Gertrude is vital in fuelling Hamlet’s hatred of women as well as his drive for revenge
- throughout the play, Hamlet obsesses over Gertrude’s haste remarriage and lack of grief for his father’s death
- Here Hamlet does not only focus on his father’s murder but also Gertrude’s remarriage revealing how it is crucial to his revenge
- Hamlet and Gertrude’s relationship is also presented as the reason behind Hamlet’s hate for women reflecting on Ophelia, saying all women are fake and pretend
b) hamlet is always cut ( except Branagh) but some lines are always kept
- the best actors in the world…
- I will have these players play something like the murder of my father before my uncle…
- the play is the thing where in I’ll catch the conscience with the king
- I’ve heard that guiled creature sitting at play…
acts Hamlet
act 1
s1. ghost appears to the sentinels
s2. King Claudius announces the marriage to Geltrude. Hamlet reveals his thoughts. Horatio tells H. about the Ghost
s3. Polonius and Laertes are told by Ophelia her affair with H.
s4-5. H. meets the ghost who reveals his father’s death. he accepts the revenge without telling it to anyone
-> muder and secrecy
-> hamlet is no hero her (full of doubts)
-> does his mother know or not?
act2
s1. Polonius and Reynaldo to spy on Laertes. Polonius and Ophelia talk
s2. Polonius catches Guildersten and Rosencratz to spy on Hamlet after they have learned from the letters and from Ophelia that Hamlet is mad
- > great theme of spying
act 3
s1. to be or not to be soliloquy. Claudius decides to send H. to England
s2. play within the play (dumbshow), Claudius reveals his guiltyness and Hamlet talks with his mother
s3 H. could kill Claudius but doesn’t
s4. H talks with his mother, ghost comes back, H. kills Polonius (most tragic scene)
-> act three begins with the famous speech and ends with the first killing -> different Hamlet
-> central act, extreme importance, the turning point of the story, from this point on, everything declines because blood is shed (typical in S)
-> Hamlet doesn’t kill Claudius because he’s praying and thinks he will go to heaven
act 4
s1. Geltrude announces Polonius’ death
s2. H. refuses to tell where the body is
s3. Claudius sends Hamlet to England, Claudius’ murder is revealed
s4. Hamlet meets Fortinbras and sees his army
s5. Geltrude announces that Ophelia has gone mad, Ophelia is mad and weird due to her father’s death. Laertes comes back to revenge his father
s6. Horatio reads the letter from Hamlet
s7. Claudius and Laertes plot revenge against Hamlet. Geltrude announces that Ophelia is dead
- > is an act based on double revenge (Hamlet’s and Laertes’s) and Laertes has a double revenge (Ophelia and his father
- > theme of madness in Ophelia: she sings a song and is untidy (blasgemous for the time), she sings about a woman who was deserted (many of the flowers she states were used for abortion= mystery and complexity)
- > machiavellan Plan: to kill Hamlet, he lures him into a fencing tournament with Laertes. Many Pitfalls: Laertes’ sword is pointed and poisoned, the drink is poisoned
act 5
s1 Ophelia’s burial + unterstakers’ speech
s2 Hamlet tells Horatio about the king, Hamlet is invited to join a fencing tournament against Laertes. they fight and L. wounds H. with the poisoned sword, who wounds L. back. the queen dies after drinking the poisoned wine and H. kills the King before he dies. Fortinbras enters and Horatio tells what happened
-> does the queen know and understand Cladius’s guilt?
-> the order restored at the end through catarisis: everybody liked to the killing and revenge dies. Denmark is socially and politically restored by Forntinbras as new king
-> not a happy ending: many inocents die = that’s was the idea of thee tragedy in those times, innocent people who died along with the crooked, dishonest, currupt ones
to be or not to be soliloquy
ACT 3 SCENE 1
- it’s overheard by Polonius and Claudius
- it’s regarded as the most personal soliloquy but there’s no “I” -> general statements about mankind
- proverbial use: “to die - to sleep”, “there’s the rub”
- list of life complexities and ills
- suicide is not stated but implied
- death is seen as an undiscovered country from where no one returns
- central dilemma: take action or not, the choice is then revealed in the last word “action”. he will avenge his father
- with his soliloquy, he will take action and be a hero, before he wasn’t ready to be a revenger
- ophelia is there: is Hamlet pretending not to see Ophelia or he really doesn’t notice her? -> every director chooses what to show -> wide range of choices
dialogue with the gravedigger is a counterpoint to the to be or not to be monologue
- > to be or not to be is about death and has a general reception (no use of me or I)
- > gravedigger dialogue has a personal meaning and reception
in the movies
- Olivier (up in the battlements) : Ophelia is not there, the text is unabridged but the setting and the actions are changed. the setting is outdoors, where he met the ghost but the cinematic choices are focused on Olivier’s mind, the dagger and the sea
- Branagh (indoors mirrored wall’s room): ophelia is there, Polonius and Claudius see hamlet behind a mirror which is actually a screen
- Almereyda (video store): voice over in the video store while he buys the material for the video dumbshow
- zeffirelli (indoors in the tumb of his father)
Romeo and juliet
Romeo and Juliet (1594-1596) is a very popular play well-known worldwide that has become a myth
- it belongs to the Great Tragedies (Othello, Hamlet, Cleopatra…) -> dark vision of life
- theaters were closed between 1593 and 1595 so we have time to write his poems (Venus and Adonis) and also R&J
- R&J it’s a new kind of tragedy; it’s not about power or decline of men (as it was usual) but it was a love story (usually only in comedies)
- > Great turning point in writing tragedies; love stories in tragedies were incidental and subplots
- > no subplots in R&J, everything is centered on the lovers’ story
- > unique setting of the acts: every scene has a precise location
- > twin of Midsummer nights dream: both planes have a similar story, were written one close to the other and both have potion (sleeping potion in MND and apparent death potion R&J)
archetypes
a) potion: in many novels we have a lover faking death to escape with the other lover
b) Romeo love’s movements:
- Romeo goes up to his love (balcony scene) and
- Romeo goes down to his love (in the catacombs) -> myth of Orpheus: semigod who descended in the underworld to bring his wife back to life
c) Romeo died giving his last kiss to Juliet (Tristan and Isolde)
versions
Q1: bad quarto (the text is corrupted because editors sent people to watch the plan write it down)
Q2: good quarto
F1
Sources Italian stories of the renaissance - Brandello's Novelle - Giraldi Cinthio's Hecatomithi These stories where particularly do you teach (narration takes weeks or months) -> Shakespeare shrunk R&J's narration time in 2/3 days
Shakespeare has invented the modern love story
- couldn’t cut off the traditional love story of the time, so he needed to have a starting point: the sonnet
Elizabethan theater was not rhymed but blank verse
-> R&J has a clear plot division that matches a metrical division in 2 parts
1/2 act 3/4/5 act
mainly devoted to love mainly devoted to deaths-
(35% of lines are rymed) tragedy (7% are rhymed)
-> traditional love -> courteous love changed
themes:
- love
- death
- violence: grows step by step
- confidantes: Romeo + Friar in parallel with Juliet + Nurse
+ Mercutio: character of strong and bad/sexist language and jokes (symbol of carnal love in opposition with romeo, symbol of pure love) -> shows sexuality of young men
cinema adaptations:
1936: first R&J
+ many more movies, opera, Bollywood, theatre, musicals, animation, burlesque
romeo and juliet acts and prologue
prologue (a sort of trailer) 1. tells the main parts of the story: - two households: dual story - civil blood: civil war and tragedy - two lovers: main characters - star crossed: ends in tragedy \+ last 3 lines referring to the audience 2. it's a sonnet (14 lines) in rhyme: appealing to the audience because it was usual for love stories to be ryhmed. it has lyrical quality
ACT 1
s1: people stated, love and fight
- Capulets and monalgues are ready to fight, Benvolio wants peace, Tybalt wants to fight, Old Capulet and lady capulet, Old Montague and Lady Montague are scold by prince Escalus. enters Romeo in love
s2: Capulet ball is announced
s3: marriage prospect of Juliet with Paris
s4: Romeo and friends go to the dance
s5: ball at the Capulet’s house: Romeo meets Juliet
ACT 2
s1: Romeo talks with Mercutio
s2: R&J balcony scene
s3: Romeo talks with Friar Lawrence
s4: Nurse seeks Romeo, he tells her of the secret wedding
s5: Nurse talks with Juliet
s6: secret wedding -> TRIUMPH of LOVE
ACT 3
s1: Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo kills Tybalt, Romeo is banished (Italian fencing words)
s2: Nurse tells Juliet what happened
s3: Friar Lawrence comforts Romeo and Nurse arrives
s4: arrangement between old Capulet and Paris
s5: Romeo and Juliet’s first night (last time they will see each other alive and talk), Old Capulet tells Juliet she will marry Paris. Juliet is lost and goes to the Friar for a solution -> TRIUMPH OF DEATH AND DESPERATION
- > from positive to negative escalation
ACT4
s1: Juliet meets Paris at the Friar’s house. Friar gives her the apparent death potion
s2: preparation for the wedding
s3: Juliet drinks the potion and sleeps
s4: preparation for the wedding
s5: Juliet discovered dead
ACT 5
s1: Romeo buys mortal potion after learning of Juliet’s death
s2: Friar’s letter never reaches Romeo
s3: Romeo kills Paris and enters the catacombs. double suicide. Romeo drinks the potion after seeing Juliet. Juliet wakes up and kills herself with a dagger. Friar tells everything and Escalus scolds both houses
R&J sonnet
ACT I, SCENE 5
- first time that a sonnet has two speakers (traditionally it had one speaker, one way) = S. transforms the courteous love of sonnets into a tragic, diagetic one (CLIMAX)
R: lips as pilgrims that have touched a holy shine (= her lips) -> a gentle sin
J: pilgrims can touch the hands of the saints and you must limit yourself in touching only my hands (teasing him). Palm to palm is the only kiss allowed
R: both saints and pilgrims have lips
J: lips are used for prayer
R: Juliet is a saint and “Let lips do what hands do” (touch=kiss)
J: saints don’t move, wait for the prayers
R: I was praying for a kiss, with this kiss-prayer the sin goes away [kisses her]
J: but now I have sinned lips
R: give my sin again [kisses her again]
J: you kiss by the book (= you are a great kisser or you kiss respecting the rules of the sonnet, the book of courteous love)
-> sonnets usually had 8 rhymes but Shakespeare adds 2 more for a second kiss
Zeffirelli movie:
- all about looks: looks of love and of hate at the ball
- stretching time to create anticipation
- > by add-ins: the singer singing the theme song by Rota like in medieval dances
- no “you kiss by the book” line: no time and incomprehensible
shakespeare in love by Madden
Shakespeare in Love is the story of the making of Romeo and Juliet (contrasted love)
- direct adaptation of it and other adaptations from works, fil, tv taken from the myth
it was a very successful movie
idea from a university student, Mac Norman’s son (playwright) in the 80’s with Julia Roberts as Viola
process of writing:
- (prewrting) he needed an inspiration, he began researching about the Elizabethian theatre and discovered that people would pay for entertainment
- he researched also the right language and dialogue to give it realism
- he wrote it and universal bought it in 1991
- the script was rewritten by Tom Stoppard (great english playwright and worked for the cinema)
- Viola also embodies the wannabe actor/actress
it has two finales:
1. first finale: Romeo and Juliet play
2. second finale: Viola and Shakespreare love story ends (the real in flash and bones Romeo and Jluiet)
