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Antipodean Shakespeares: Appropriating Shakespeare in Australian Film

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Onscreen Allusions to Shakespeare

Part of the book series: Global Shakespeares ((GSH))

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Abstract

Shakespearean intertexts appear in a diverse range of Australian films. This chapter examines three films that use various modes of appropriation: a play-within-a-film and the transposition of Shakespearean language in Raymond Longford’s The Sentimental Bloke (1919), a fleeting citation in Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and an extended intertextual engagement in Jerzy Domaradzki’s Lilian’s Story (1996). This chapter argues that Australian screen culture has shaped Shakespeare in its own unique ways, rendering Shakespeare a crucial part in the process of negotiating complex questions of national identity and articulating the postcolonial relationship between Australia and Britain. Shakespeare has also been a key medium for articulating human relationships and experiences of loss, absence and resilience, as these three films demonstrate.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Victoria Bladen

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  1. Victoria Bladen
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Correspondence to Victoria Bladen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

    Alexa Alice Joubin

  2. University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Victoria Bladen

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Bladen, V. (2022). Antipodean Shakespeares: Appropriating Shakespeare in Australian Film. In: Joubin, A.A., Bladen, V. (eds) Onscreen Allusions to Shakespeare. Global Shakespeares. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93783-6_3

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