In his Criterion Collection DVD commentary on Laurence Olivier’s Henry V, from 1944, film historian Bruce Eder proclaims this the first successful attempt to bring a Shakespeare play to the silver screen. “Up until its release, film adaptations of Shakespeare had succeeded neither as Shakespeare, nor as films,” Eder intones. “Olivier’s was the first to succeed on both counts.” He goes on, reasonably enough, to decry all earlier efforts as hampered by awe, and “respectful to the point of cold sterility.”
Wait, what? Had Eder not seen Max Reinhardt’s glittery A Midsummer Night’s Dream, from 1935, with the little moonlight-kissed Mickey Rooney, the spastic James Cagney, the eager Olivia de Havilland — not to mention the immortal music of Felix Mendelssohn? Or how about that silent German production of Hamlet (subtitled “The Drama of VENGEANCE”) from 1920? That’s the one that ends with the brooding Dane’s grief-stricken pal Horatio copping a feel of his friend’s fresh corpse, only to announce, “Death reveals thy tragic secret!” Namely, that Hamlet was a girl.
Granted, these films do have their limitations. Neither title cards nor Warner Brothers production budgets do much justice to the nuance of Shakespeare’s poetry, for instance. But they also rebuke the logic of Eder’s introductory assertion. As if England’s national history and myth were the Bard’s personal property, and solely his invention. As if Olivier’s admittedly rich and marvelous directorial debut wasn’t only one element of an enduring cultural continuum.
Anyway, it’s no matter. You won’t need the Pacific Film Archive’s Shakespeare on Screen series merely as ammunition for debating DVD commentary. You’ll need it for getting caught up. After Olivier’s Henry V, to be sure, the gates were open; we have no shortage now of Shakespeare films (with still more on the way, like a new take on The Tempest starring Helen Mirren), and this small batch — a baker’s dozen, in total — should serve to show off the full range of cinematic adaptation techniques.
Classics are classics because they’re worth revisiting. So you ask yourself: Is Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, the one with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, as preposterous as you remember? Is Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood as essential? The answer is of course.