From theatre showing to cinema telling

Abstract

This chapter appropriates theories of literary and film narratology as well as the concepts of film semiotics to analyse how Shakespeare plays are transformed when they are adapted to the screen. Adapting Shakespeare plays on screen always involves a shift from one enunciative system to another. Given its verbal nature, theatre is generally considered to be more able to ‘tell’, whereas cinema is usually thought to be more able to ‘show’ through the semiotic diversity of images and sounds that it can convey. Nevertheless, film studies have reached the conclusion that cinema merges the acts of showing and telling, and introduces the figure of an exterior narrator. Several directors of Shakespeare adaptations have positioned themselves in a narrative trend that guides the audience's concentration. Baz Luhrmann, director of William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet , is convinced that ‘Everything is about telling the story.’ For Julie Taymor, who directed Titus , the point of film-making is ‘not just the story but how you tell the story’. In an interview in American Theatre , Ian McKellen explains what experience director Richard Loncraine brought to the project of adapting Richard III for the screen: I'm not an expert practitioner. Fortunately, director Richard Loncraine is. He made 400 fabulous commercials for a start. I'm a huge fan of commercials. Telling a story very quickly, grabbing the audience's attention, that's all part of movie making – it's all part of how to do Shakespeare. For Branagh as well, cinema, like theatre, must be used above all for narrative purposes.