“In the tide of times”: continuity and change in screen Shakespeare(s)

Seminar at the ESRA CONFERENCE - Budapest - July 6-9 2023 - https://esra2023.btk.ppke.hu/

Conveners:  Victoria Bladen (University of Queensland) victoria.bladen[at]uqconnect.edu.au,
Sylvaine Bataille (Université de Rouen Normandie) sylvaine.brennetot[at]univ-rouen.fr

Shakespeare has been present on screens for more than 120 years, from the 1899 silent film King John to recent films like Joel Coen’s 2021 Macbeth, the 2018 spin-off Ophelia or Netflix’s 2019 The King. From “box office poison” to “mass-market Shakespeare film”, from “new wave Shakespeare” to a “post-‘Shakespearean-blockbuster’ phase” (L.B. Mayer cited by Lanier, 2002; Lanier, 2002; Cartelli and Rowe, 2007; Hatchuel and Vienne-Guerrin, 2017), the history of Shakespeare on screen has been one of shifts and transformations, as well as endurance and citation. Times and technologies change, generations of directors and viewers succeed each other, but filmmakers continue to be drawn to Shakespeare and find his plays relevant to our world. New versions reinvent previous films (for instance, Spielberg’s 2021 West Side Story) or use similar adaptational strategies, while the resurgence of black-and-white (in Joss Whedon’s 2012 Much Ado About Nothing and in Joel Coen’s 2021 Macbeth), as well as the pandemic-related revival of the filmed theatre subgenre (available on streaming platforms such as Globe Player or National Theatre Home), seem to take us back to the beginnings of Shakespeare on film. 

This seminar will provide an opportunity to ask where we are in Shakespeare on screen and in screen Shakespeare studies today. We invite proposals on:

• the extent of the renewal brought by recent Shakespearean screen productions: are we currently witnessing a new “wave” of Shakespeare films or is this notion no longer relevant given today’s media context of fragmentation, niche production and Internet streaming?
• Experimentation/innovation and tradition: how do film/TV/digital Shakespearean productions deal with the traditions established by previous screen interpretations and more broadly with cinematic genre conventions? At what point do innovations turn into conventions which can then lend themselves to parody?
• Screen Shakespeares in a changing world and in times of crisis: between resistance to change, escapism or nostalgia and a meaningful dialogue with the historical moment; and
• Any other interpretations of the theme of ‘continuity and change’ in Shakespeare on screen.

Please submit your 200-300-word abstract along with a short biography by 1 December 2022 to both conveners.