Authors:
- Considers the ideological, cultural, and psychological reasons for adaptation
- Extends scholarship of “slant” or “circuit” adaptations
- Synthesizes literary and film theory in relation to Shakespeare’s influence
Part of the book series: Reproducing Shakespeare (RESH)
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
Reading Shakespeare in the Movies: Non-Adaptations and Their Meaning analyzes the unacknowledged, covert presence of Shakespearean themes, structures, characters, and symbolism in selected films. Writers and directors who forge an unconscious, unintentional connection to Shakespeare’s work create non-adaptations, cinema that is unexpectedly similar to certain Shakespeare plays while remaining independent as art. These films can illuminate core semantic issues in those plays in ways that direct adaptations cannot. Eric S. Mallin explores how Shakespeare illuminates these movies, analyzing the ways that The Godfather, Memento, Titanic, Birdman, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre take on new life in dialogue with the famous playwright. In addition to challenging our ideas about adaptation, Mallin works to inspire new awareness of the meanings of Shakespearean stories in the contemporary world.
Reviews
“Clever, timely, and compelling, Reading Shakespeare in the Movies: Meaning and the Non-Adaptation highlights the “disruptive analogies” that emerge from explorations of unexpected Shakespearean resonances in major films, ranging from The Godfather and Titanic to Birdman and Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri. The book is a masterful study in the joy of discovery—and recovery—of the surprising affinities, intractable questions, and disturbing continuities that inform popular culture and mass entertainment in Shakespeare’s day and our own time.” (Courtney Lehmann, Tully Knoles Professor of the Humanities, University of the Pacific, USA)
“Reading Shakespeare in the Movies accounts for ‘movies that do not know they are Shakespeare plays,’ and promises to be an unusual, and welcome, contribution to adaptation studies. Eric Mallin synthesizes literary and film theory, deftly reading drama and cinema in productive tension with one another.” (Scott Newstok, author of How to Think Like Shakespeare (2020))
Authors and Affiliations
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The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA
Eric S. Mallin
About the author
Eric S. Mallin is Associate Professor at The University of Texas at Austin, USA. He is the author of Godless Shakespeare (2007) and Inscribing the Time: Shakespeare and the End of Elizabethan England (1996). He has received several teaching awards including the President's Associates' and the Texs Exes' honors. He specializes in Shakespeare, cinema, and the nexus of sexuality and religion in the English Renaissance.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Reading Shakespeare in the Movies
Book Subtitle: Non-Adaptations and Their Meaning
Authors: Eric S. Mallin
Series Title: Reproducing Shakespeare
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28898-3
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-28897-6Published: 13 November 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-28900-3Published: 13 November 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-28898-3Published: 31 October 2019
Series ISSN: 2730-9304
Series E-ISSN: 2730-9312
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 254
Number of Illustrations: 16 b/w illustrations
Topics: Shakespeare, Drama, Adaptation Studies, American Cinema and TV, Film Theory