Which Western writer's work has been adapted into a film and television drama the most times?
The answer is William Shakespeare.
According to statistics, his works have been adapted into movies as many as 410 to 1500 times.
Adaptations of Shakespeare's works are usually divided into two types.
A kind of complete fidelity to the original work, reproducing the theme and meaning expressed in the original work through images.
Lawrence, who has long been immersed in Shakespeare's theatrical stage, oliver is a 100% original supporter.
In 1948, he self-directed and self-starred "The Prince's Revenge" was a benchmark for faithful adaptation of the original book.
From the lines, performances to photography, as far as possible, do not destroy the style of the original work, but make full use of the unique perspective of the film to explore the depth of the original expressed theme.
The second is that the story or theme is based on the original work, but reorganizes and recreates it in combination with the director's worldview, and becomes a more stylized author's film.
Orson Welles belongs to the radical Innovation Party.
In 1948, Orson Wells's film of the same name, adapted from Shakespeare's play Macbeth, was more German expressionist, exploring the inner conflicts and spiritual worlds of the characters through continuous shots that could not be shown on stage.
His bold innovation on the basis of the original book has led many directors to follow suit.
In 1957, the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa borrowed the cloak of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" to adapt the film "Spider's Nest City" and was also a successful case of bold innovation based on the original work.
1985's "Chaos" is based on Shakespeare's play "King Lear", but it is integrated into the life and death concept of a generation of tyrants in the changing situation of Japan's Sengoku period.
The 1961 Hollywood classic The West Side Story, based on Romeo and Juliet, tells the story of a cross-racial love affair between Hispanic Americans and native whites in the sixties.
The modern adaptation of Shakespeare's works became a trend in the 1990s.
In 1996, Bazruchmann embedded the story of Romeo and Juliet in the context of modern America in the 1990s.
The most recent American film adaptation of Shakespeare's play, The Tragedy of Macbeth, came to the fore during the American Film Awards Season.
If you want to make a simple division of it, it is clearly an attempt to be faithful to the original.
Multiple versions of Macbeth, which is better or worse?
In 1948, Orson Welles's version of Macbeth was the earliest feature film adaptation.
With the support of B-grade studio Republican Pictures, it took only 23 days to shoot, using the remaining sets of the Westerns to set the minimalist style of the film, but Orson Welles created a dreamlike Macbeth.
The picture is more dark and eerie, with a German expressionist style.
The original work was just a springboard, and expressing desire and new possibilities was Orson's ultimate goal.
In 1971, Roman Polanski's "Macbeth", the lines were popularized, the character performance was patterned, and the theme of the protagonist facing death made it a simple melodrama in the Hollywood style, and the psychological conflict and the depth of the theme of the characters in "Macbeth" were greatly weakened.
In 1979, Ian McLean starred in "Macbeth" as the highest-rated version, and in the context of the film's minimalist style, Ian and Judy Dench's performances were very brilliant, mutually successful, and supported the whole play by the charismatic performances of the actors.
In 2015, Michael Fafassbinder starred in "Macbeth" basically based on the original book, but the background uses real scenes, natural environment and light, and the character performance is more realistic, but the overall performance is decent.
The first four versions are all starred by white actors, except for the latest version, the director chose the black actor Denzel Washington, both to subvert the routine of all white characters in Shakespeare's plays, but also seems to be practicing the political correct line of Hollywood's "black life".
Not only did Joel Cohen use black actors as male number one, but other good Hollywood film directors have tried.
Christopher Nolan's "Creed" invited Denzel Washington's son John David Washington to be the male number one, and Robert Pattinson to be the supporting role of green leaves.
Benjamin Cleary collaborated with Black Actor Mahershala Ali, who starred in Green Book, on the movie "Swan Elegy."
Then again, Joe Cohen's adaptation is the closest to Shakespeare's original.
Whether it is the expression of lines in Old English, the stylized visual presentation or the expression of various metaphors, they are highly close to the original work.
Can't understand, blame the fault of Old English?
Having a modern audience watch a movie set in Shakespearean era, with Old English lines from start to finish, does require a great deal of patience.
It is said that this film is obscure, in fact, the director did not change the language of Shakespeare's era to a standard that conforms to the speaking habits of modern people according to the aesthetic preferences of modern people.
When Bin Ge watched this movie, he felt that he was back in the time of reading Shakespeare's excerpts in English and American literature class.
This kind of film that is completely faithful to Shakespeare's plays gives people a real taste of the pure charm of the English language.
The style of the lines is actually a major attraction of the film, and many words in modern English have evolved from these old English words.
Before introducing this film, you may wish to popularize the knowledge of these old English words and lower the threshold for appreciation.
There's a line in the movie that 's "The king hath happily received the news of thy success."
"hath" is the third-person singular form "has" of the verb "have" in modern English.
"thy" is the modern English adjective "your".
The "babe" in "a new-born babe" in the line refers to "baby" in modern English.
“It raineth every day.” The "raineth" in this sentence refers to the "rains" (three forms of rain) commonly used in modern English.
The communicative sentence "Did you...?" commonly used in English conversations Translated into Old English, it became "Didst thou...?"
By analogy, "could" becoming Old English is "couldst."
“Are you...?” The sentence form that becomes an Old English expression is "Art thou...?"
There are also modern English expressions that usually place "not" before the real verb, but in Old English it is placed after the real verb.
For example, the phrase "I don't know" is expressed in modern English as "I don't know", and in ancient English it became "I know not".
In addition to these old English words, many literary rhetorical techniques in English, such as metaphors and metaphors, are also everywhere, and their role is to express the various emotions and psychological states of the characters.
If you peel back all this external form, the core of the story shown in this film is very simple and easy to understand.
Tell a story of killing and revenge.
The story goes to the effect that the three witch sisters predicted that Macbeth (Denzel Washington) would become king, so he and his wife (Francis McDormand) assassinated King Duncan, but he was unworthy of the throne and was eventually beheaded by Macduff, and Duncan's son became king of Scotland.
Does reusing the narrative techniques of old Hollywood work?
Ancient power struggles have always been bloody, but the director has adopted an anti-modern Hollywood film narrative approach when dealing with these bloody conflict plots, restraining the expression of bloody shots from beginning to end.
Even the assassination of King Duncan is a close-up of a pool of blood that flows to the ground to show the results.
Films from the classic Hollywood period (1932-1965) were influenced by the Hayes Code and could not nakedly represent any bloody violence or even sexual scenes.
In the 1934 comedy film One Night Out, poor journalist Peter (Clark Gable) is in the same room as the rich and wealthy ellen (Claude Coule White) and must be separated by curtains to dilute the description.
Not to mention that the scene in "Gone with the Wind" in which Captain Red (Clark Gable) rapes Scarlett (Vivien Leigh) after drinking is also played down by changing scenes such as Scarlett waking up the next morning and lying in bed happily humming.
But modern Hollywood cinema is no longer bound by the Hayes Code, so why should directors adopt this obscure approach? This may be related to the director's personal aesthetic.
At least the effect has been achieved in the creation of the photographic style.
Like the black and white films of old Hollywood, there is no color modification, and black and white have an overwhelming advantage.
The white walls, window sills, columns, staircases and floors of the palace, these whites represent the eternal social order.
A black witch, a flock of flying black crows, Mike's white-black skin, these blacks point to evil desires.
In the dark of the night, the moonlight shines into the palace, and the black shadows are staggered and distributed, which are the external projections of the complex psychology of the characters.
The director borrows black and white to suggest that the so-called truth is not simply black and white, but is in a black and white intersection, unfathomable complex human nature, chaotic and difficult to distinguish.
The film's cinematography is impeccable, and the composition of each picture is exquisite and beautiful, paying attention to symmetry.
Unfortunately, this somewhat bland story lacks convincing dramatic conflict and makes the character modeling more formal.
The characters' large monologues explain their inner desires, but the collision of dialogues dwarfs them.
Form is greater than core, and muttering replaces dramatic conflict, causing the whole story to appear flat and dry.
On the beauty of film form, Joel Cohen does not lose to Wes Anderson and Wong Kar-wai, on storytelling and depth, nor does he lose to Nolan and Martin Scorsese.
But this work stays in macbeth's power expansion and extermination of the action dimension, the lack of internal character portrayal that supports him to do so, and the lack of strong interaction with other characters is also a major flaw in the film, which inevitably degenerates into an empty expression for the sake of doing.
A great example of running a mom-and-pop shop
As a Hollywood movie husband and wife, it is normal to run a mom-and-pop shop.
The Old Hollywood period had Lawrence Oliver and Vivien Leigh, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
Closest were Gehrig and ex-wife Madonna.
Sincere cooperation, its profit is broken.
The two paid for the film together.
The previous seven cooperations are also quite tacit, not only praise, but also box office.
Year of collaboration Filmography
1984 Labyrinth of Blood
1987 Raising Arizona
1990 Miller's Crossroads
1996 Ice Storm
2001 The Absent Man
2008 "Burn After Reading"
2016 Long Live Caesar
In some movies, the wife is the female number one, and some movies are purely for the wife to help the husband, and as for the drama more drama, it is secondary.
The advantage of the mom-and-pop shop is that it produces itself, controls the budget by itself, does not need to be pointed out by the big studios, and is forced to catch up with the progress every day.
Another advantage is that the role can be picked by yourself, and the partners who want to cooperate can also be selected by themselves, and there is no trouble of squeezing the head to fight for the good role to the producer and director.
Such a clear division of labor and cooperation is more effective with half the effort, not only the production cycle is controllable, the actors' performances are more confident, and the final quality of the finished product is also guaranteed.
After watching this movie, as an audience, Bin Ge wanted to give the film a 7.5 point.