posted
I'm putting together a list of movies that are based on story lines from Shakespeare, without being actual movies of Shakespeare plays like Much Ado About Nothing.
Most of them seem to be teen movies. Can anyone think of any others?
West Side Story (Romeo and Juliet)
She's the Man (Twelfth Night)
10 Things I Hate About You (Taming of the Shrew)
Get Over It (Midsummer Night's Dream)
They don't have to be comedies, even though all of those are.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Before looking at Carrie's linked Wikipedia list, the only one I had thought of was "O," a teenage adaptation of Othello, which Julia Stiles made not too long after "10 Things I Hate About You."
After seeing "Two Gentlemen from Verona" last Summer I decided it was perfect for a modern, American set adaptation. The wiki-link doesn't list any known movie adaptations; I should get started on a script.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
It is more of an "actual" Shakespeare, but I absolutely love Much Ado about Nothing where Denzel Washington and Keanu Reeves are brothers. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107616/
And it has Emma Watson in it too!
(I don't know if this is the version you were referring to in your first post Lisa or not)
posted
Loosely, anyway. If it was closely based on Hamlet, most of the main characters would have died.
And besides, Disney based it more on Osamu Tezuka's Jungle Emperor Leo, known in America as Kimba and Leo the White Lion...though they usually try and not draw attention to that.
My own favorite "based on, but not" Shakespeare film is Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, loosely adapted from Macbeth. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I can think of at least three movies that fall into a similar category for Jane Austen, if you're interested. Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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The hockey player from the insane asylum is Ophelia.
Her uncle Claude (Claudius) killed her father in order to take over the brewery. Her father's ghost comes to her and tells her that this happened. Sound familiar?
In the beginning of the scene where the Ophelia character "drowns" along with Bob and Doug (they're saved by breathing beer bubbles), he's even holding flowers.
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Lion King II tried to be Romeo and Juliet, but it doesn't really work without the big finish. Also, it was just generally awful.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by BannaOj:And it has Emma Watson in it too!
I believe you mean Emma Thompson. I checked and Ms. Watson was 3 when that movie was released. But yes it was great. I liked Michael Keaton.
I am stunned to find out about Strange Brew... I will now have to go watch it (for the first time in a couple of decades).
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: Lion King II tried to be Romeo and Juliet, but it doesn't really work without the big finish. Also, it was just generally awful.
The Lion King I was Hamlet.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: My own favorite "based on, but not" Shakespeare film is Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, loosely adapted from Macbeth.
Also Kurosawa's Ran, which is a version of King Lear.
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posted
Lion King II tried to be Romeo and Juliet, but it doesn't really work without the big finish.
Disney couldn't get the double teenager suicide to pan out beyond the storyboard stage,
Also, it was just generally awful.
"Scar had a band of evil lioness wives on his side in the first film! You just never saw 'em! And one of them has a son who looks just like Scar, but isn't REALLY his son so it won't be incest when he falls in love with Simba's daughter! It's brilliant I tell you, BRILLIANT!"
posted
There was a book by Lawrence Block where his protaganist, who wrote term papers and theses and dissertations for a living, wrote a paper maintaining that Hamlet was actually a comedy, rather than a tragedy.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I took a Shakespeare staff development where one of our activities was to choose a new setting for Romeo and Juliet. (The idea is that, similar to many modern productions, you keep all of Shakespeare's words but set the play in a different time/ place to make it ,ore relevant/ make people think.)
Our group set it in modern day Northern Virginia (where our district is). Juliet was Hispanic (her father was a Spanish-speaking immigrant from, I believe, El Salvador, involved in construction); Romeo was white and the son of a contractor. They met when Romeo crashed her quinceanera, but they had further associations through the local Catholic church, where the young, cool youth pastor Father Lawrence (Laurence?can't remember) was trying to get the white kids and Hispanics to find common ground. It was shocking how well it fit our current situation in NoVa.
Gosh, it was a fun activity. And obviously very transferable to the classroom. How much more interesting than taking turns reading the play out loud. Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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