FILMING SHAKESPEARE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 803, 10 December 1954, Page 5

FILMING SHAKESPEARE

Sir,-It is regrettable that you should prefer to publish an article on the problems of filming Shakespeare by an English drama critic (Philip Hope-Wallace) rather than commission one from either of your two excellent film critics. Mr. Hope-Wallace, in revealing an ignorance of the film medium, never seems to grasp the most salient fact of all: that Shakespeare’s plays as such cannot and will never be filmed _ successfully. Cinema is primarily a visual medium; it cannot hope to depend on the spoken word. Hence the impossibility of filming Shakespeare "straight." There is more to Shakespeare than his verse, as Mr. Hope-Wallace hesitates to suggest. Shakespeare was a man of ideas, like all serious writers. The verse, the plays, were the vehicle for them, In filming Shakespeare the important thing is to convey these ideas visually. It is only natural, therefore, that some of Shakespeare’s verse, magnificent in itself though it may be, must regrettably be by-passed. But is it really such a heresy to suggest that Shakespeare’s ideas, characters, and_ situations can _ be developed just as powerfully visually? I think we saw the nearest to it in Joseph Mankiewicz’s Julius Caesar. Elimination of some of the text in no

way affected the relentless logic of Shakespeare’s story. It was not altogether a success, but it did suggest the greater potentialities of . filmed Shakespeare. Mr. Hope-Wallace seems curiously reluctant to discuss this, attributing the-film’s success and power to "the cut and thrust of the dialogue." But it was more than that. It was more, too, than "perfectly photographed stage playing." In places cinema had actually added something:to Shakespeare. And the basic problem in filming Shakespeare is not "what to do with the camera while the verse is being spoken." It is the translation of the verse into visual terms, into the seeing eye of the camera. The merit of Shakespearian films should be judged on the degree of success of this, just as theatre, a different medium, is judged mainly on its quality of acting. New Zealanders, unfortunately, have not had a chance to see the film under discussion, Castellani’s Romeo and Juliet. Mr. Hope-Wallace does not appear to see a great deal of merit in it. He complains that too much of the text is dropped, without stating whether the basic situation is developed faithfully. He opines that the non-stage actress who played Juliet did not act. She only "seems to act." Does the. difference really matter? Film is predominantly a director's medium, and only partly the medium of the actor, Other non-stage actors and children "seem to act," too, but this has never lessened the force of Bicycle Thieves, for example. Other noted English critics, like Dilys Powell, who know and love the cinema, have seen some merit in Mr. Castellani’s work. I, for one, would prefer to accept their judgment until we have seen the

film.

M. F. R.

SHADBOLT

(Wellington). |

(The article was based on Castellani's "Romeo and Juliet." It would have been a feat of some magnitude to commission a similar article from one of our film critics while, as our correspondent observes, New Zealanders "have not had a chance to see the film under discussion.’’--Ed. }