It was just recently that I was speaking with Christine, a fellow Shakespearean, about Shakespeare movies. Coriolanus, Gnomeo, The Tempest. “Who am I kidding,” I told her, “It’s The Tempest. I may not have loved it but I’ll almost certainly get it on DVD when it comes out.”

Well, it’s coming out September 13. Will you be getting it? Apparently one of the extras is “Julie Taymor interviewing Russell Brand, as William Shakespeare.” Having now read that, I may break it into little pieces shortly after watching it. We shall see.

Wait, wait, wait… The Godfather was supposed to be a modern version of King Lear?

Ten Academy Awards nominations and the winner of 3 Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay; the top-grossing film of the year, and a $134 million box-office hit; set in the mid to late 1940s NYC to the mid 1950s, a 10 year period, with Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, head of the crime family; it was filmed as a modern version of Shakespeare’s King Lear (featuring a king and three sons: hot-headed eldest Sonny, Fredo and Michael); the ‘honorable’ crime “family,” working outside the system due to exclusion by social prejudice, was threatened by the rise of modern criminal activities – the “dirty” drug trade. Family loyalty and blood ties were juxtaposed with brutal and vengeful blood-letting, including Corleone’s attempted assassination in 1945 after he refused to bankroll a crime rival’s drug activities…

[ Spotted on Filmsite.org’s history of the Oscars ]
Anybody want to discuss that? Beyond the “king separating his empire among three children” bit I’m not sure how long it holds up. Is this a legitimate comparison, or more like how Lion King is supposed to be Hamlet?

In case you missed this, our dear animated Shakespearean gnomes are now sitting at the #1 Box Office spot!
Granted, box office charts are an incredibly relative measure and based entirely on what else opened that weekend. But still! Three weeks in, and this kids movie is still hanging in there. That means more people have the chance to go see it. I still contend that’s a good thing.
On the same subject, check out this article at Jim Hill Media which speaks of Disney’s own happiness at the success of this one, and how honestly they had no idea. What to do now that their next kids’ movie, Mars Needs Moms, comes out next week? Where should the advertising budget go? Decisions, decisions…

Ok, fine, nobody was willing to claim that any film could live up to the title of being the definitive interpretation of a play. I have to concede.
But I’ll take Alexi’s idea and open up a more specific topic — definitive cinematic versions. Will that make everybody happy? What is the definitive cinematic version of, say, The Tempest?
What’s a better definition for “definitive” in this case – would you call it the one you’d recommend to a friend as their first exposure to the story? Or would you go the other end of the spectrum and say, “No matter how many film versions of X you’ve seen, you simply must see Y.”

Today, Ian said to me that Taymor’s The Tempest was far from the definitive film version of that play. Which made me think of a question.
What are the definitive versions?
Choose a Shakespeare play, and tell me what you feel is the definitive film version of that play. Availability of the film in question is not relevant – if ever in your life you get a chance to see Chimes At Midnight, you must see it. Please explain what your working definition of “definitive” is.
If we need some form of common ground to start the discussion, let me offer this – the definitive version is the one you would recommend to someone who has little/no experience with the play. This film will be their first exposure to it, therefore you want their experience to be as close to Shakespeare’s ideal vision as possible.
Feel free to debate that, too. 🙂 But no fair saying “go see it live”, this is specifically about the ability to share a film, and to know that you can see a film, recommend it to a friend, and then have the experience of that film in common with others. That’s near impossible with live theatre.