Differences Between Midsummer Night's Dream Movie And Play

A Modernized Adaptation of “A Midsummer Night 's Dream”

The play “A Midsummer Night 's Dream”, by William Shakespeare and the film version directed by Michael Hoffman relate to the same plot, but were created over four centuries apart. Shakespeare’s play was written in 1593-1594 while Hoffman’s film was produced in 1999. The play and movie used love as the main theme with clever literature and magic. Even though both the play and the movie had identical structure, such as characters and plot, Shakespeare’s play was transformed in Hoffman 's movie in order to appeal to the modern audience. One of the key adaptations Hoffman made in the film was the tone of Shakespeare 's phrases. For instance, there is a section of the play where the character Thisbe said “My cherry lips have often kissed thy stones” (53). Shakespeare intended this to be a joke, referring stones to testicles. In Hoffman 's movie portrayal, Thisbe’s character said this line slowly while breaking up each word, distracting the audience’s attention from the joke. The audience was at that point more aware of his poor acting. Another noticeable quote from Shakespeare’s play used in Hoffman 's movie is “To meet a Ninus ' tomb, there, there to woo” (52). In Hoffman’s movie, the character forgot his line, and when corrected by the director, it was
loud enough for all to hear. Once again, the interruptions made by the actors switched the audience’s attention away from the creative literature in the play. Along with the pronunciation adaptations, Hoffman also emphasized sexuality in the movie.
This focus was enhanced by the casting of the Hermia and Helena characters. In Shakespeare’s play, Helena was in love with her ex-fiancé Demetrius, who was in fact in love with Hermia. In Hoffman’s depiction, he chose a voluptuous character for Hermia and a boyish bodied female to play the role of the jealous Helena. Additionally, Hoffman included another noticeable sexual adaptation, a mud fight between Helena and Hermia revealing their body figures as they fought for their love. The sexual content in the movie maintained the liberal and modern audience’s
attention. From major details to minor details like props, Hoffman modernized the aspect of Shakespeare’s fifteenth century play. As Cartmell stated in her criticism, “Hoffman’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is set in late nineteenth-century Italy, complete with the newly invented bicycle as an index to the film’s turn-of-the-century setting”. The bicycles depicted were not originally incorporated in Shakespeare’s play, therefore, modernizing the atmosphere of the movie. Another prop added in the movie was a cigarette. These two props were not originally in Shakespeare’s play because they did not exist in the Shakespearean era. As discussed, both versions of A Midsummer Night 's Dream contained the same concept, such as language or props. Though modernizations made to Shakespeare’s play were intended to appeal to a present day audience, this comparative analysis demonstrates how minor adjustments can change the atmosphere of the film appealing to a different audience. Such as in Hoffman 's adaptation, theatrical remakes should contain minor adjustments in order to appeal to a certain audience group. They should not defer the attention away from the creative literature from the original context.

Works Cited

A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Dir. Michael Hoffman. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 1999. Film.
Cartmell, Deborah, I. Q. Hunter, and Imelda Whelehan. Retrovision : Reinventing The Past In Film And Fiction. n.p.: Pluto Press, 2001.eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 21 Apr. 2013.
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night 's Dream. Web.