Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

Adaptation
Raymond Chandler. PHOTO BY JOHN ENGSTEAD/EVERETT
COLLECTION. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.
is equal danger in attempts to ‘‘open out’’ a play by transferring
interior scenes into exotic outdoor locations and
hoping that will somehow make the work more cinematic.
Some sort of balance between stage and film effects is
therefore essential. Sidney Lumet’s (b. 1924) filming of
Eugene O’Neill’s (1888–1953) Long Day’s Journey into
Night (1962) achieves its claustrophobic effect by respecting
the spatial limitations of the stage while transforming it
through skillful use of camera movement and lighting, and
by varying screen space and distance for dramatic effect.
Shakespeare has been by far the most adapted playwright
worldwide, even in the silent period, when
extracts and condensed versions of his plays proliferated
in most European countries as well as in Britain and the
United States. The coming of sound brought the inevitable
problem of how to make poetic dialogue convincing
in the more naturalistic medium of film. It is often
argued that the finest of all Shakespeare films is
Kurosawa’s 1957 Kumonosu jô (Throne of Blood ), which
is based on Macbeth. It retains almost nothing of the
dialogue, even in Japanese, while majestically transforming
theme, emotion, and imagery into purely visual
terms, with Macbeth constantly surrounded by images
of fog, nets, and labyrinths. Though Grigori Kozintsev’s
(1905–1973) Gamlet (Hamlet, 1964) and Korol Lir (King
Lear, 1970) use Boris Pasternak’s (1890–1960) translation
of the plays, the non-Russian–speaking viewer,
forced to rely on subtitles, can perhaps appreciate better
the stark black-and-white imagery of the films.
The most admired English-language versions usually
attempt a compromise between stylization and naturalism,
both in speech and action; for example, Laurence
Olivier used the confined space of the castle set in Hamlet
(1948) and allowed the camera full rein in the battle
scenes of Henry V (1944). Polanski’s Macbeth (1971)
accentuates the physical violence inherent in the play,
and Orson Welles (1915–1985) brings his own superb
visual sense to his Othello (1952) and Campanadas a
medianoche (Chimes at Midnight, 1967, based on the
Henry IV plays) without neglecting the spoken word.
Examples of more radical transformations are the updating
of Romeo and Juliet by Baz Luhrmann (1996) and the
intensely personal re-creations of The Tempest (1979)
by Derek Jarman (1942–1994) and Peter Greenaway
(b. 1942) (as Prospero’s Books, 1990). Kenneth Branagh
(b. 1960), in seemingly open competition with Olivier,
has filmed an uncut Hamlet (1996) and an impressive
Henry V (1989), among others.
The most often filmed English dramatists after
Shakespeare have been George Bernard Shaw (1856–
1950), Noel Coward (1899–1973), Terence Rattigan
(1911–1977), and Oscar Wilde (1856–1900). In most
cases the results have been respectful and moderately
faithful rather than inspired (though the 1928 film of
Coward’s The Vortex and the 1933 Design for Living had
to be drastically altered to escape the censors). Anthony
Asquith’s (1902–1968) 1952 film of The Importance of
Being Earnest still far surpasses later versions of Wilde,
both as a film and as an adaptation, and both versions of
Rattigan’s The Browning Version (1951, 1994) and The
Winslow Boy (1948, 1999) remain popular.
Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams (1911–1983),
Arthur Miller (1915–2005), Clifford Odets (1906–
1963), and Lillian Hellman (1906–1984) are among
the most frequently adapted American playwrights,
though, with Williams in particular, contentious subject
matter has often forced major alterations between stage
and screen. A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia
Kazan in 1951, remains the classic transformation of his
work. Apart from the version of Long Day’s Journey into
Night, the best O’Neill adaptation has been John
Frankenheimer’s (1930–2002) The Iceman Cometh
(1975). Hellman’s The Little Foxes (1941) became a
classic film through William Wyler, but Clash by Night
(1952) and The Big Knife (1955) are largely rewritten
versions of Odets. Perhaps the most interesting film
based on Arthur Miller’s work is Sorcières de Salem (The
46 SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM