All the world's a screen in Shakespeare film fest

“The play’s the thing,” wrote William Shakespeare in Hamlet, but in the case of the new festival, “Shakespeare in Cinema,” at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, it’s actually the movie that’s “the thing.” 

The festival, programmed in collaboration with the English department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU), begins on June 9 and continues throughout the month.

The program features 10 adaptations of filmed Shakespeare plays, several presented with lectures that will illuminate them, although perhaps the lecturers would be well advised to keep in mind that, as the master dramatist wrote, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

Shakespeare's plays on the big screen

So many of Shakespeare’s tragic plays deal with corrupt leaders and those who are destroyed fighting them, that they will always be topical. The festival features two versions of Hamlet, although it doesn’t include the 1990 version by Franco Zeffirelli with Mel Gibson as the Danish prince, who was better than you might guess but, sadly, it doesn’t include Laurence Olivier’s version either, considered by some to be the best screen adaptation. 

It does feature Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 adaptation, in which he also stars in the title role. Billed as the first unabridged filmed version, the supporting cast includes Julie Christie as Gertrude, Derek Jacobi as Claudius, and Kate Winslet as Ophelia, all names you might expect. But Billy Crystal is also in the cast, playing a gravedigger, while Charlton Heston is the Player King, Jack Lemmon is Marcellus, and Robin Williams is Osric. The film is set in and around Victorian castles and received predictably good reviews. 

Ethan Hawke stars in the 2000 version directed by Michael Almereyda, which runs almost an hour less than Branagh’s Hamlet. Hawke’s Hamlet was updated and is set in the boardrooms of early 21st-century corporate America. Bill Murray turns up here as Polonius, while Sam Shepard was convincingly spooky as the Ghost. 

The opening movie is a filmed live performance of Macbeth that took place in London, starring Ralph Fiennes as the guilt-ridden leader who ruthlessly dispatches his enemies, egged on by Lady Macbeth (Indira Varma), and was directed by Simon Godwin. Updated so that the characters wear modern-day casual clothes, it was well reviewed and will be preceded by a lecture by HU’s Micha Lazarus, on the topic, “So Much Blood: Macbeth from Page to Screen.” 

Branagh, originally known for classical theater, has adapted several Shakespeare plays to the screen, and Henry V was arguably the most critically acclaimed of these. He was still in his 20s when he directed and starred in this film, which was seen as a triumph for the young actor. Emma Thompson, who was then married to Branagh, plays Princess Katherine. 

Chimes at Midnight, directed by and starring Orson Welles, takes the character of the buffoon Falstaff who appeared in several of Shakespeare’s plays, including Henry V, and looks at the reigns of Henry IV and Henry V through his eyes. 

Japanese master director Akira Kurosawa transposed King Lear to 16th-century Japan and turned the daughters into sons in his 1985 classic. The movie is faithful to Shakespeare’s theme of a narcissistic leader who is undone by putting his vanity before the good of his kingdom. It is also a stark look at the price of war and features some of Kurosawa’s most beautifully filmed scenes. 

Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 Romeo + Juliet offered up history’s most famous romance in a version that looked like it could have aired on MTV. It was made in an era when teens still went to movies and it aimed to draw them in. Filmed in Mexico and staged so that the rival families are meant to resemble street gangs and the Mafia, it stars Leonard DiCaprio as Romeo and Claire Danes as Juliet, while John Leguizamo steals quite a few scenes as Tybalt. The costumes and cinematography are gorgeous, and the movie is very effective. 

Also a take on Romeo and Juliet, Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story remake was seen as less magical and romantic than the original version, and it throws away some of the best songs in uninspired production numbers. Still, Rachel Zegler as Maria is captivating, and she has deservedly become a star following this movie’s release.

There are two other films in the mix that were definitely aimed at a teen audience, one of which has survived the test of time and proved to be appealing to all moviegoers of all ages, while with the other, it’s too early to tell. Gil Junger’s charming 1999 film 10 Things I Hate About You is a modern-day adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew, with Julia Stiles as Kat, the prickly shrew of the title, who is wooed by Patrick, played by Heath Ledger. Will Gluck’s recent Anyone But You stars Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell in a very loose adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. 

For the full schedule, go to jer-cin.org.il/en/lobby/shakespeare-cinema