There's a traditionalist argument though, isn't there -
There is.
that simply by filming Shakespeare we're doing injustices to the text…
..that we're diminishing the text.
That's right, betraying it in some way.
I have a certain sympathy with that in the sense that…
..actually it's quite an old argument isn't it…
..the most famous advocate of it was really the romantic essayist Charles Lamb, who…
..I think very eloquently made the case for…
..theatrical versions always really being doomed however wonderful they are,
to impoverish the wealth of meaning…
..that you can glean from a reading of the play…
..in the privacy of your own study or inside your own mind,
because every particular production,
however remarkable the actors, however interesting and original the direction,
has got to interpret it, has to make decisions.