Abstract
Laurence Olivier’s Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1948), and Richard III (1955) stand as examples of quality British cinema and are generally considered the first remarkable achievement in sound era Shakespearean adaptations. After several Hollywood attempts to adapt Shakespeare, Olivier created inventive and imaginative Shakespeare films that were popular with audiences and critics.1 Olivier brought to these productions both his experience at the Old Vic where had he developed these roles and established himself as the preeminent Shakespearean actor of his generation2 and his experience working in Hollywood with directors like William Wyler and Alfred Hitchcock.
O, pardon! Since a crooked figure may Attest in little place a million; And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, On your imaginary forces work.
—William Shakespeare, Henry V
He was not of an age, but for all time!
—Ben Johnson, on Shakespeare
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Notes
Maurice Hindle, Studying Shakespeare on Film (Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 19–20.
Kenneth S. Rothwell, A History of Shakespeare on Screen: A Century of Film and Television (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 7.
Anthony Davies, Filming Shakespeare’s Plays: The Adaptations of Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Peter Brook and Akira Kurosawa (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 2.
Roger Manvell, Shakespeare and the Film (New York and Washington: Praeger Publications, 1971), 30.
Margaret Butler, Film and Community: Britain and France (London and New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2004), 4.
Anthony R. Guneratne, Shakespeare, Film Studies and the Visual Culture of Modernity (New York and Hamsphire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 57.
Jim Leach, British Film (Cambridge UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 18.
Kenneth O. Morgan, Twentieth Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 60.
Donald Thomas, The Enemy Within: Hucksters, Racketeers, Deserters & Civilians During the Second World War (Washington Square, New York: New York University Press, 2003), 353.
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© 2012 Michael W. Boyce
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Boyce, M.W. (2012). Adapting Shakespeare: Once More unto the Breach. In: The Lasting Influence of the War on Postwar British Film. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137015044_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137015044_5
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