Film Adaptation of Shakespearean Comedy: Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothin
6. "Film versions of Shakespeare comedies can lie anywhere on a spectrum between an exploration of serious issues and simple comedy of a farcical or uncomplicated nature." Discuss with reference to two films.
Shakespearean plays are complex, intricate pieces of work in which a diverse range of interpretations and readings can be made. This is particularly true of his comedies, where the light-hearted humour is often offset by darker, more serious undertones. In adapting these comedies it is for the director in the cinematic context to decide how to interpret the play and which elements are privileged and which are suppressed. This variance in interpretation is exemplified in comparing two of the more recent cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare 's comedies, Trevor Nunn 's Twelfth Night and Kenneth Branagh 's A Much Ado About Nothing [Much Ado ']. Although both films can to an extent be seen as comedies with serious, almost tragic aspects inherent throughout, Nunn 's film deals with these serious facets as central to the depiction, whereas Branagh, although not entirely ignoring the deeper issues, prefers a more light-hearted and visually attractive adaptation. Twelfth Night has been described as like Hamlet in a comic vein ' . In terms of Shakespearean chronology, the bittersweet edge to the play and the fact that it is essentially a comedy with the dark, sometimes disturbing elements, has been linked with the playwright 's movement toward the genre of tragedy. The range of filmic adaptations of the play illustrates the variation in the interpretation of Shakespeare 's work, with the dark edge often failing to make the transition to screen. However this is not the case with Nunn 's Twelfth Night, which achieves this exploration of the serious essentially through his interpretation of some of the play 's principal characters including Malvolio, Feste and Maria.
Malvolio 's character is significant to Nunn 's adaptation in many respects with it
Shakespearean plays are complex, intricate pieces of work in which a diverse range of interpretations and readings can be made. This is particularly true of his comedies, where the light-hearted humour is often offset by darker, more serious undertones. In adapting these comedies it is for the director in the cinematic context to decide how to interpret the play and which elements are privileged and which are suppressed. This variance in interpretation is exemplified in comparing two of the more recent cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare 's comedies, Trevor Nunn 's Twelfth Night and Kenneth Branagh 's A Much Ado About Nothing [Much Ado ']. Although both films can to an extent be seen as comedies with serious, almost tragic aspects inherent throughout, Nunn 's film deals with these serious facets as central to the depiction, whereas Branagh, although not entirely ignoring the deeper issues, prefers a more light-hearted and visually attractive adaptation. Twelfth Night has been described as like Hamlet in a comic vein ' . In terms of Shakespearean chronology, the bittersweet edge to the play and the fact that it is essentially a comedy with the dark, sometimes disturbing elements, has been linked with the playwright 's movement toward the genre of tragedy. The range of filmic adaptations of the play illustrates the variation in the interpretation of Shakespeare 's work, with the dark edge often failing to make the transition to screen. However this is not the case with Nunn 's Twelfth Night, which achieves this exploration of the serious essentially through his interpretation of some of the play 's principal characters including Malvolio, Feste and Maria.
Malvolio 's character is significant to Nunn 's adaptation in many respects with it
Bibliography: Brode Douglas. Shakespeare in the Movies: From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 97-99. Cartmell, B. Interpreting Shakespeare on Screen. (2000). Marshall, K. "How do you solve a problem like Maria?: A Problematic (re)interpretation of Maria in Trevor Nunn 's Twelfth Night." Literature-Film Quarterly 30, no. 3 (2002): p. 219. Richard, R. "Much Ado About Branagh". Commentary 96(4) (1993) Sheppard, P