A history of Shakespeare on screen - Kenneth S. Rothwell

A History of Shakespeare on Screen chronicles how film-makers have re-imagined Shakespeare's plays from the earliest exhibitions in music halls and nickelodeons to today's multi-million dollar productions shown in megaplexes. Topics include the silent era, Hollywood in the Golden Age, the films of Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles, the television scene to include the BBC plays, the avant-garde cinema of Jarman and Greenaway, and non-Anglophone contributions from Japan and elsewhere. This second edition updates the chronology to the year 2003 and includes a new chapter on such recent films as John Madden's Shakespeare in Love, Kenneth Branagh's Love's Labours Lost, Michael Almereyda's Hamlet, and Billy Morrissette's Scotland, Pa. A filmography, bibliography, and index of names makes it invaluable as a one-volume reference work for specialists, while the accessible style will ensure that it also appeals to a wider audience of Shakespeareans and cinephiles.

Kenneth S. Rothwell is Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Vermont, Burlington. He was the co-founder and co-editor with Bernice W. Kliman of the Shakespeare on Film Newsletter. He co-chaired the Shakespeare on Film seminar at the Tokyo 1991 World Shakespeare Congress, and he produced the Shakespeare on Film Festival at the Los Angeles 1996 World Shakespeare Congress. He compiled with Annabelle Henkin Melzer Shakespeare on Screen: An International Filmography and Videography (1990), and 'Occasional Paper no. 8', a monograph on Shakespeare silent films for the International Shakespeare Association (2000) series.

"...The best book this reviewer has ever read on this subject, this title is a must for any library, where it will serve undergraduates through faculty interested in film and/or Shakespeare."
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