Summary for English and American Studies in German

Summary for English and American Studies in German

Katharina Kettner
‘Such Stuff as Films are Made on’: Shakespeare im Medienwechsel
(‘Such Stuff as Films are Made on’: Shakespeare in Media Changes)
PhD thesis Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Prof. Dr. Ulrich Suerbaum); Beiträge zur Medienästhetik
und Mediengeschichte, 9 (Series Ed. Prof. Dr. Knut Hickethier). Münster, Hamburg: LIT Verlag
1999, 2 Vols., 288 pp.
Celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Globe Theatre and the 100th anniversary of
Shakespearean film creatives, art and media critics and recipients are still madly „in love with
Shakespeare“, whose works prove to be the most popular, the most endurable box office
poison in film history.
The controversy about cultural and aesthetic values, forever present in discourses about
literary adaptation, still culminates in discussing Shakespeare adaptation, especially when
focussing on Shakespeare adaptations on film. Despite some excellent research on this field,
what is still required here – as indeed anywhere - is the establishment of paradigms of
evaluation, or at least a thorough awareness of these paradigms and their backgrounds.
Whatever the criticism, its criteria should not be merely indifferent and subjective but open to
verification / falsification. Furthermore, it should offer acceptable models for generalisation, or
serve as a method for analytical approach.
Examining The Tempest and two of its film adaptations, Derek Jarman’s The Tempest
(GB 1980) and Prospero’s Books by Peter Greenaway, this study aims to trace and to
categorise the changes that occur in transforming a Shakespearean play into a
Shakespearean film, and to explore the aesthetic criteria to evaluate the adaptation. Model
qualities are claimed in two aspects: Firstly, the films represent the aesthetical awareness of
their makers, i.e. the intention to experiment with the potential and the limits of the medium.
Secondly, the study favours an interdisciplinary approach that includes the interconnected
facets of the process of change from one medium into another, as well as related arts like
music, dance and painting.
A look at the fascinating history of adaptations inspired by The Tempest not only
demonstrates that the play provokes a point of view according to the current ‘Zeitgeist’, it can
also teach a lot about the conditions for aspects of adaptability in general, about thematic and
stylistic contexts as well as individual selection strategies and concepts. The biographical
backgrounds of Jarman and Greenaway and their oeuvres, the conditions of the actual film
productions (budget, team spirit etc.) open the focus to their specific film language, the
direction of poetic / visual expression of two very aware film makers towards two individually
different, indeed opposite aesthetic concepts of adaptation.
Departing from ‘classical’ and more recent approaches towards a theory of filmed
literature which involve the problems of abstraction, realism and perspective this study
introduces the cinematic concepts of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. It explores the
possibilities of transcending the notions of reality and actual time (‘presence’) and space in
films to create more virtual and symbolic levels of meaning and ventures to develop a
synthesis according to the aim of the project. The terminology at the core of this new
theoretical framework is based of the concepts of centrifugality and centipetality which apply to
the function of language, image, space and time in theatrical and visual contexts.
The comparative analysis of the two films operates on and verifies the established
framework; all findings are backed by the documentation material in the supplementary
volume: The chapter on text selections not only lists cuts, additions and structural changes in
relation to the original, it also discusses the effects of these ‘co-authorial intrusions’ on
receptive production, i.e. on the new work of art, and thus discovers the conceptions and
strategies behind the surface of adaptations.
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The two celluloid tempests - and the celluloid magic they are caused by - are explained
in terms of the directors’ specific overall concepts (dream format, simulation format) and the
aesthetic and cultural history they are based on. Furthermore, the close analyses of the
expository scenes demonstrate the conrete means of filmic transformation and in what way
they differ from Shakespeare’s dramatic techniques.
This case study of form and content is extended by an examination of the possibilities of
mis-en-scene in the media of language, film and theatre with special regard to space and time,
e.g. the significance of frame and perspective, spatial relations expressing interpersonal
relations, the use of spatial metaphors like staircases, etc.
Depicting time – memories, the past, presence and future – in a Tempest adaptation is
an enormous challenge for a film maker, one that can be seen as a projection of magic. From
visions of dreams via multiplication and reflection of characters via framed virtuality to a
concept of Fake, as this book shows, existing notions of audiences are questioned and
challenged in turn by Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway while being surprisingly true to
Shakespeare’s original.
Summary Departing from the double objective to examine analogies in two Tempest
versions on film and to establish a methodically sound theoretical framework which renders
satisfactory results, this study offers ways to analyse language and image, time and space in
singular aspects as well as in complex relations of interplay. In comparing the radical
aesthetics of Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway the analyses experiment with new criteria of
difference without forcing them onto the films. The findings are backed by thoroughly
researched, precise documentation material: extensive tables and film protocols in the
supplementary volume as well as diagrams and visual quotations on CD-Rom.
Keywords Shakespeare adaptations on film, media aesthetics, The Tempest, Derek
Jarman, Peter Greenaway, Prospero’s Books, adaptability, realism vs. virtual image, poetic /
visual expression, frame and perspective, language and image, time and space,
interdisciplinary approach, film protocols
Katharina Kettner
now managing director of wave-concepts,
intercultural training, coaching & consulting
for corporate clients and centres of
excellence.
On the basis of over 18 years of practical
experience in personnel & organisational
development and on the background of her
studies in Economy & the Fine Arts she
develops innovative concepts & projects in
the field of Arts & Business.
[email protected]
www.wave-concepts.de
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