In this post: films, musicals, the opera, plays and various types of pop music.
I would have expected more episodes on films from Shakespeare, but who knows, the future may bring one on Caesar must die, by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, or on Peter Greenaway’s Prospero’s books.
This is what we have for now:
- An episode on Danish silent movie star Asta Nielsen and her Hamlet. https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/asta-nielsen-hamlet-hutchinson/ On the page of the Folger website you’ll find resources on silent cinema and Danish cinema.
- Orson Welles and Shakespeare, which deals not only with his films from Othello, Macbeth and the comedies (Chimes at Midnight), but also with the artist stage career. https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/orson-welles/
- Matías Piñeiro on His Shakespeare-Adjacent Films; I don’t think I have ever seen anything by this Argentinian director. His films are not from Shakespeare, but have characters who have connections to the plays or plots deriving fro them.
- Shakespeare on film covers the history of film adaptations from the plays from the silent era to Kenneth Branagh, who proved repeatedly that you could make Shakespeare attractive to large audiences while staying true to the Bard. It would be lovely to have an episode including Buzz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet. Incidentally, I will never tire of Branagh’s Henry V.
/https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/shakespeare-unlimited-episode-26/
- Shakespeare and world cinema covers films that are mostly retellings, most notably Kurosawa’s (Ran, Throne of blood) but also films made in India, China and South America. https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/shakespeare-unlimited-episode-42/
- Director Casey Mott is interviewed with his co-producer, Fran Kranz, on their A midsummer night’s dream set in modern Los Angeles https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/mott-midsummer/. All the characters are in show business.
- Simon Godwin tells how what should have been a National Theatre staging of Romeo and Juliet became a film shot under the peculiar difficulties of the Covid lockdown. https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/romeo-juliet-godwin/
The opera and its modern cousin, the musical
- There is an episode on melodrama from Shakespeare (Rossini, Verdi, Gounod et al.) https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/opera/
- One on a contemporary Hamlet opera https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/hamlet-opera-dean-jocelyn/ and one on Antony and Cleopatra given “the operatic treatment” https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/john-adams-antony-cleopatra-opera/
- Three on musicals: A very good one on West side story that illustrates how different it is to write a musical rather than a play https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/west-side-story-leonard-bernstein/ ;
- another on & Juliet: https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/and-juliet-david-west-read/; and finally, one that sounds very meta: Something rotten. https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/something-rotten/. The show is on Youtube.
Plays
And talking about metadrama:
- an episode is on a play on the creation of the First Folio, https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/the-book-of-will/
- Fat Ham, instead, is a comedy based on Hamlet https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/fat-ham-james-ijames/
Music
A surprising episode on Punk Rock Shakespeare https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/punk-rock-shakespeare/
One on Duke Ellington’s Sweet thunder https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/duke-ellington/
- Finally, for now at least, two episodes on hip hop: one, rather interesting, with Akala,https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/akala-hip-hop-shakespeare/ and another with the Q Brothers which I didn’t find very appealing. https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/q-brothers-othello/
Well, that’s all for tonight.
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