Page 73 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

62 / Shakespeare in the Movies

tra, rejoice! This is your triumph; not ours"—and assuredly not the
Bard's. By the turn of the century Will's words took a backseat to
special effects; this was the general approach at the birth of cinema,
a storytelling form that naturally lent itself to such spectacle.

Early Films
The movie medium, as French auteur George Melies proved, allowed
for a fuller realization of the fantastical than live theater. Surpris-
ingly, then, A Midsummer Night's Dream was one of the few Shake-
spearean plays this magician turned moviemaker never attempted.
The first-known movie (all of eight minutes in length) was produced
in Brooklyn in 1909 by Vitagraph. Charles Kent directed Dolores
Costello and her sister Helene, both as fairies. Kent opted for on-
location shooting in Central Park, including the famed Bethesda
fountain. Such grounding in reality made the special effects, includ-
ing Puck's wild flights, all the more breathtaking to the immigrant
audience, who, like Shakespeare's own groundlings, delighted in
such stuff.
That same year, France's Le Lion films offered a loose adaptation,
Le song d'une nuit d'ete, d'apres Shakespeare, featuring Tudor Hall.
Italy's Paulo Azzuri had a go at the play in 1913, resulting in a
twenty-minute charmer that, like Vitagraph's, was shot entirely out-
doors. For its time, Azzuri's film rates as sophisticated in terms of
convincing acting and creative camera work. Also in 1913, Ger-
many's Stellan Rye directed a sensuous version, emphasizing the
sexual entanglements. Titled Ein Sommernachtstraum, the brief
flicker was shot in the sumptuously grandiose style Max Reinhardt
had established for live-theater productions.
Presaging high camp in the 1960s, Reinhardt's gleefully over the
top approach was also obvious in another German version (with the
same title) produced in 1925, running fifty minutes. Noted actor
Werner Krauss (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; Othello), played Bottom.
Director Hans Neumann so emphasized the sexual element that
German censors pronounced the film off-limits for children. This
made the film a commercial success with curious adults. The more
sophisticated among them noted that in addition to graphic nudity,
this movie also boasted a greater helping of Reinhardt-style specta-
cle than Rye's previous version. Some wondered out loud why Rein-
hardt himself hadn't been hired to make the movie. That situation
would shortly be rectified in, of all places, Hollywood.