When I started this project, I thought I knew all I needed to know to write intelligently about Shakespeare films. I had taken classes in Shakespeare and screenwriting in college, I’ve read all the Shakespeare plays, I’ve listened to them as audioplays, I’ve seen many of them on film, and I’ve been watching movies since I was a toddler.
I have quickly learned how wrong I was! First, I need to study up on Shakespeare. I need to read every book I can find about Shakespeare’s life, Shakespeare criticism, the world of Shakespeare, everything Shakespeare.
Second, I know almost nothing about film studies. There’s way more to it than I thought. Rothwell often alludes to the “grammar of film,” which is something I hadn’t really thought about before. I knew there were visual cues that are used to evoke moods and attitudes, and thereby tell the story, but I had never really thought about them very much. Rothwell points them out, but as his book is not an intro to film studies, he doesn’t go very far into them. I need to learn more.
Rothwell is not a fan of films that are adaptations of stage performances. His ideal is a story that must be told in film, using the grammar of film and images and sounds that would be impossible to reproduce in any other medium. I don’t really know what he’s talking about. I grew up watching Doctor Who episodes from the 1970’s and then reading the novelizations of the same stories. Yes, I loved the sounds and images I saw on TV, but the sound and visual effects were always better in the novels. I’ve seen movie versions of books that had better acting than the novel, but I’ve never seen one with better special effects. I need to learn more about this film-centered aesthetic.
You could design a drinking game around Professor Rothwell’s mentions of Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky, and the phrase “tickling commodity.” Alexander Nevsky is apparently the archetype of films with Medieval battle scenes with horses. I’m not all that versed in Soviet-era (or any other era) Russian films, so I’ll have to take his word for it (I requested a copy from Minerva. It’s on its way). “Tickling commodity” is his code for the fact that it costs money to make a film, and if a movie doesn’t make money, similar movies will not be made. One of my favorite podcasts is the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s Podcast. It’s a little bit about Shakespeare, a fair amount about comedy, and a lot about how to make a living in theater. The hosts are witty and the podcast is almost always interesting or at least not too long. One of the points they’ve made on numerous occasions is that the reason it’s called “Show Business” is that without the show, there’s no business, and without the business, there’s no show. The two are always in tension, but you can’t have one without the other. It’s a good podcast. You should give it a listen.
I never like being informed of my on ignorance. I do know a lot of stuff, after all. In a lot of circles, I’m a Shakespeare expert, and in some I’m even a film expert. Professor Rothwell has shown me that I don’t know half as much as I thought. I’ll admit that it’s discouraging. But I’m not going to give up. I now have some introductions to film studies on my bookshelf, and I’m sure the library has even more on their shelves. I’m only 1/4 of the way through the plays. I have much more to learn, many more books to read, many more films to see.
For now, I have to go watch Alexander Nevsky.
