Shakespeare in Popular Culture: Film -Realizations across World Singh Ritu Mohan, Ph.D. Scholar, Arora Mahesh Kumar, Associate Professor Department of Management and Humanities, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal, Punjab, India Online published on 18 June, 2014. Abstract Shakespeare is probably the only author with most works adapted to the screen ever. His plays have been adapted to the big screen by numerous directors over the years, creating a whole ‘Shakespeare movie’ genre. Among Shakespearean plays, we come across different motives or objectives. Shakespeare is popular universally because he deals with ordinary human emotions: jealousy, anger, love, envy, etc. His ‘themes’ can be adapted across any language, country or culture. The history of Shakespeare in the movies from the silent era to present time has, after all, been the search for the best available means to replace the verbal with the visual imagination, as an extension of, Shakespeare's genius into uncharted seas. There is no doubt that some of these films manage to offer new and old audiences more than a glimpse of Shakespeare's plots and characters. The study on reception of Shakespeare in world cinema suggests that all these processes of adaptation and appropriation are ‘sub-sets’ of the larger practice of influence, reception and inter-textual studies. All films invoke the same message in a rich and ever-evolving cultural mosaic. Within this framework, the present paper will try to briefly document all the comedies and tragedies of Shakespeare adapted to the screen across the world. Since, it will be too lengthy to discuss them in detail, only factual information is supplied. Top |