Shakespeare and British World War Two film / Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr..

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sullivan, Garrett A., Jr., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Influence.

Shakespeare, William.

World War, 1939-1945--Motion pictures and the war.

World War, 1939-1945.

Motion pictures--England.

Motion pictures.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 203 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2022.

Summary:

During World War Two, many British writers and thinkers turned to Shakespeare in order to articulate the values for which their nation was fighting. Yet the cinema presented moviegoers with a more multifaceted Shakespeare, one who signalled division as well as unity. Shakespeare and British World War Two Film models a synchronic approach to adaptation that, by situating the Shakespeare movie within histories of film and society, avoids the familiar impasse in which the playwright's works are the beginning, middle and end of critical study. Through close analysis of works by Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard, Humphrey Jennings, and the partners Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, among others, this study demonstrates how Shakespeare served as a powerful imaginative resource for filmmakers seeking to think through some of the most pressing issues and problems that beset wartime British society.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title

Title page

Copyright information

Dedication

Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 ''Hamlet's a Loser, Leslie'': Pimpernel Smith, Hamlet and Film Propaganda

Chapter 2 ''What We All Have in Common'': Fires Were Started, Macbeth and the People's War

Chapter 3 The Black-White Gentleman: The Man in Grey, Othello and the Melodrama of Anglo-West Indian Relations

Chapter 4 ''Bottom's Not a Gangster!'': A Matter of Life and Death, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Postwar Anglo-American Relations

Coda Two Cities Films and ''the Spirit of Britain'': In Which We Serve, The Way Ahead and Henry V

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 30 Mar 2022).

Other Format:

Print version: Sullivan, Garrett A., Jr. Shakespeare and British World War Two Film

ISBN:

1-108-90533-1

1-108-90631-1

1-108-90377-0