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Description
The first Shakespeare film King John was made over a 100 years ago, yet to some people the very idea of putting Shakespeare's plays on to film seems a very suspect one. How can cinema possibly conv
...ey the richness and complexity and subtlety of Shakespeare's texts?
For some film directors though Shakespeare is the consumate script writer, a playwright whose work lends itself very powerfully and memorably to the big screen. In this programme we'll be looking at some of the notable achievements in the history of Shakespeare on film. Later in the programme we'll be talking to the Polish film makervRoman Polanski about the making of his Macbeth, and we'll also be looking at some scenes from Macbeth recorded in Arizona specially for this programme.
| 10 | 00:00:48,000 | 00:00:52,000 | (Sue Wiseman) That's another thing these relatively early versions of Shakespeare do… |
| 9 | 00:00:49,000 | 00:00:55,000 | even till destruction sicken - answer me! |
| 10 | 00:00:49,000 | 00:00:53,000 | and I think you get some of the remarkable, wonderful shots I think, |
| 15 | 00:00:51,000 | 00:00:55,000 | however remarkable the actors, however interesting and original the direction, |
| 11 | 00:00:52,000 | 00:00:56,000 | (Sue Wiseman) ..isn't it? They put the crown on its own and make you focus on it, |
| 11 | 00:00:53,000 | 00:00:55,000 | some of the best shots in the whole movie… |
| 16 | 00:00:55,000 | 00:00:58,000 | has got to interpret it, has to make decisions. |
| 11 | 00:00:55,000 | 00:00:59,000 | (Kiernan Ryan) And so in that regard at least, you can see potentially tragic contrasts… |
| 12 | 00:00:55,000 | 00:00:58,000 | (Kiernan Ryan) ..are those when the camera is way up behind him… |
| 12 | 00:00:56,000 | 00:00:58,000 | (Sue Wiseman) ..close up to the crown. (Kiernan Ryan) Yeah. |
| 10 | 00:00:58,000 | 00:01:02,000 | Stephen Regan: What do you find particularly impressive about the Orson Welles' Macbeth? |
| 13 | 00:00:58,000 | 00:01:01,000 | (Kiernan Ryan) ..and he's seated on his throne, and you're looking down… |
| 12 | 00:00:59,000 | 00:01:04,000 | ..between the kind of man he started out being, and the sort of bloated buffoon in a way, |
| 13 | 00:00:59,000 | 00:01:04,000 | (dramatic film music) |
| 14 | 00:01:02,000 | 00:01:04,000 | (Kiernan Ryan) ..as if from a great height, as if he was on a mountain, |
| 11 | 00:01:03,000 | 00:01:06,000 | Kiernan Ryan: Well certainly the black and white manages to make you feel as though... |
| 13 | 00:01:05,000 | 00:01:09,000 | or rather… sinister and lethal bloated buffoon that he winds up being. |
| 15 | 00:01:05,000 | 00:01:10,000 | (Kiernan Ryan) at some poor servile menial whom he's addressing, and you simply see him… |
| 14 | 00:01:05,000 | 00:01:06,000 | (Kiernan Ryan) Exactly so. |
| 12 | 00:01:06,000 | 00:01:10,000 | you're imprisoned in some almost hallucinatory internal universe. |
| 15 | 00:01:07,000 | 00:01:15,000 | (dramatic film music) |
| 14 | 00:01:10,000 | 00:01:13,000 | Sue Wiseman: Interestingly actually after that rather wonderful banquet scene… |
| 16 | 00:01:10,000 | 00:01:15,000 | (Kiernan Ryan) ..silhouetted from behind, and that expansion, that dilation of… |
| 13 | 00:01:11,000 | 00:01:14,000 | I mean there were strange cavernous underground corridors or rooms, |
| 15 | 00:01:13,000 | 00:01:17,000 | ..there is a moment where the question of what Lady Macbeth has become and… |
| 14 | 00:01:15,000 | 00:01:19,000 | it's a kind of interior landscape , a 'paysage intérieur' as the French call it, |
| 17 | 00:01:15,000 | 00:01:18,000 | (Kiernan Ryan) ..scale and perspective really is quite magnificent and… |
| 16 | 00:01:17,000 | 00:01:22,000 | ..the question of what Macbeth himself now is - this kind of rather bloated figure… |
| 18 | 00:01:18,000 | 00:01:23,000 | ..I think it captures precisely both at the same time the romantic heroic idealisation… |
| 15 | 00:01:20,000 | 00:01:25,000 | so as if you're almost moving around inside the subconscious of a character himself… |
| 17 | 00:01:22,000 | 00:01:26,000 | ..who is also I think in the banquet scene, been a tragic figure, |
| 19 | 00:01:24,000 | 00:01:28,000 | ..of the figure and at the same time what is terrible and inhuman and monstrous about… |
| 16 | 00:01:26,000 | 00:01:31,000 | ..when he sinks to the lowest depths of despair, in particular, |
| 18 | 00:01:27,000 | 00:01:30,000 | (Sue Wiseman) they're sitting alone together and when he's saying he's gonna do in… |
| 20 | 00:01:28,000 | 00:01:34,000 | ..what Macbeth has turned himself into by giving in to the credo of… |
| 19 | 00:01:30,000 | 00:01:35,000 | (Sue Wiseman) ..all the McDuffs, and he sits there and he's this very solid kind of, |
| 17 | 00:01:32,000 | 00:01:38,000 | so I think that there is something hallucinatory and dreamlike about Shakespeare anyway, |
| 21 | 00:01:34,000 | 00:01:36,000 | ..'for mine own good all causes shall give way'. |
| 20 | 00:01:37,000 | 00:01:40,000 | (Sue Wiseman) ..the whole of his body sort of one pendulous thing sitting on this kind of… |
| 18 | 00:01:38,000 | 00:01:42,000 | and I think the use of black and white, of monochrome really can evoke that… |
| 21 | 00:01:41,000 | 00:01:45,000 | this end of the bed posture isn't it, like we're locked in this terrible relationship… |
| 19 | 00:01:42,000 | 00:01:46,000 | ..in a way that technicolour often doesn't manage to because of its association… |
| 22 | 00:01:45,000 | 00:01:49,000 | ..I was gonna tell you about my death, and she is increasingly… |
| 20 | 00:01:46,000 | 00:01:51,000 | ..with a more naturalistic reproduction, photographic, kind of realism. |
| 23 | 00:01:49,000 | 00:01:52,000 | ..she says "oh, you'll see to it will you", and then she moves right off… |
| 21 | 00:01:52,000 | 00:01:55,000 | The use of shadow and silhouette is very effective in the Welles, |
| 24 | 00:01:53,000 | 00:01:56,000 | (Sue Wiseman) ..and in a way that' s the last time we see them together, |
| 25 | 00:01:56,000 | 00:01:59,000 | (Sue Wiseman) and that's the point at which they both become those things… |
| 22 | 00:01:56,000 | 00:01:59,000 | (Stephen Regan) particularly when those shadows coincide with… |
| 26 | 00:01:59,000 | 00:02:02,000 | (Sue Wiseman) ..that they're going to be to the end. -(Keirnan Ryan) That s right, yes, |
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