Dialogue inShakespearean

Offshoots

The question that haunted so much ectfly criticism of Shakespeare on film, "Is it Shake.speare?"now seems irrelevant, according to Kenneth Rothwcll in his 2001 survey. "How the Twentieth-Century Saw the Shakespeare FQm." Tlie "text-centered preoccupation with the literal translationof Shakespeare's language Into film language" no longer interests critics (82-83). In a paralleldevelopment, several 1990s '"adaptations" create radical disjunctions between Shakespeareanlanguage and filmic images. Adopting a postmodern aesthetic of parody and pastiche, the.se filmsjuxtapose fragments of contemporary media culture against Shakespeare'.s archaic poetry.Simultaneously, the Shakespearean "offshoot" ha.s become a popular film genre tliat dispenseswith die plays' language altogether, wlule radically recontextualizing character, setting, and action.'As Shakespeare's dense poetic language has become irrelevant to film critics, it may be disappearingfrom, or be drowned out in. contemporary Shakespeare-based films. But maybe not. I find in manyShakespeiinian offshoot.s the kind of dialogues with their source texts that recent adaptations, likeBaz Luhnnann's/?(W(«) + Juliet (1991) as\d Richard Loncraine's/?ic/wn/y//(1995), deliberatelyreject.

Mercutio as a black, drug-pushing diva in drag, Tybalt as a Hispanic gang leader wearing a SacredHeart of Jesus vest, tlie Nurse as a Cuban nanny, and Lady Capulet as a Southern belle—theseshifting images nsminiscent of MTV have made Luhrmann's adaptation of Romeo + Juliet thetouchstone for defining postmodern Shakespeare tBurt 169-72). Likewise, the vaguely Nazi uniforms

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for Richard of Gloucester, the constant haze of cigarette smoke, an ever-present glass of whiskeycharacterizing the up-start queen's brother as an American playboy, and the action-movie sequencethat recreates the Battle of Bosworth Field—these glossy images from Hollywood war movieshave earned Loncraine's adaptation of Riduird III the label "camp" Shakespeare (Buhler 40-57).

Whereas in Chitnes at Midnight (1966) Orson Welles famously created a visual language, in starkblack and white film, to translate Hal's emergence from "base contagious clouds" into the light ofkingship (7 Henry A' 1.2.190-91). Luhrmann and Loncraine deliberately interpolate images that jaragainst Shakespeare's language. The message sent to the exiled Romeo arrives late by the "PostHaste" mail service. Similarly. Richard shouts his famous line. "My kingdom fora horse!" (RichardIII 5.4.7). because his jeep has broken down on the battlefield. As both tragic protagonists approachdeath, we are encouraged to laugh. These disjunctions between word and image situate the viewer'semotions at an ironic di.stance from the tragedy.

Such films have prompted Richard Burt to claim that the relationship between Shakespeare andpopular culture film has become "post-hermeneutic"^—meaning diat there is no dialectical ordialogic relationship between the source play and the shifting surfaces of media images in ctirrentfilms. Shakespeare's language, argues Burt, is drowned out by noise, by "the nonsynchronizationof high and low cultural registers" (Btm 162). Unlike Burt, who labels these contemporary adaptationsunspeakable "Shaxxxpeares," Courtney Lehmann fmds in them Shakespeare's "remaines." whichwere bequeathed to posterity by Heminge and Condell in The First Folio. "Is the Shakespeareantext always ah^ady postmodemr she asks. After all. Shakespeare himself engaged in the same kindof cannibalization and pastiche of past styles and authorities as the postmodern filmmaker (15-16.159). I a^^e with Lehmann that Shakespeare's "remaines" do survive in contemporary film—oddly enough in offshoots that seem to dispense with his language.

Offshoots. I will argue, not only mimic Shakespeare's own transformative recycling of plots andarchetypes, but not infrequently, they engage an intense dialogue with the language of their sourcetexts. Four filmic offshoots of A'/«g Z.̂ ar will Illustrate this claim. Two are recontextualizations thattranslate Shakespeare's plot and characters into » different culture and/or historical moment: AJdraKurosawa's Samurai epic Ran (1985) and A Thousand Acres (1997) based on Jane Smiley'sPulitzer-prize-winning novel about an Iowa farm family. The two others use the common plotdevice of a story about staging a Shakespearean play: The Dresser (1983). based on RonaldHarwood's play about a Shakespearean touring company in World War II England, and The King isAlive (2(XX)). a Dogme 95 film about tourists, stranded and bored, who enact King Lear in theAfrican desert.

In Ran. Kurosawa faithfully attends to Shakespeare's language, although not one word of theplay is spoken. Relocating the Lear story in feudal Japan, die film's relation to its source text goesbeyond mere plot and character parallels. Like Welles,Kurosawa translates Shakespeare's verbal poetry into filmicimagery. For example, the play's exploration of the cosmicimplications of Lear's foolish division of his kingdom isreinforced visually as the insignia of the old king Hidetora,the sun cradled in the crescent moon, is split between thesun insignia of one son. whose banners are yellow, and tliemoon insignia of the other, whose banners are red. In thefilm's central battle scene. Hidetora is trapped in the towerof a castle he ceded to one son. As the armies of his twosons slaughter his remaining warriors, as his concubinescommit ritual suicide, and as the tower is engulfed in fiames, Hidetora is immobilized in disbelief.Breaking out of his trance-like state, he reaches for his sword only to find the empty sheath.Horrified hy the chaos he has created, maddened by shock and grief, and impotent to end his lifehonorably, the Great Lord staggers down the steps of the tower. ,

106/Dialogue In Shakespearean Offshoots

In this scene, we see the two armies of his sons (the yellow banners on the left; the red on therighi) part to allow what appears to be a demon spirit of the Great Lord pass. With the flames oftlie tower raging directly above his head, Hidetora stumbles down tlie stairs between the twoarmies, dragging his empty sheath. In the division of the yellow army of the sun and ihc red armyof the moon. Kurosawa images the chaos ("ran" means chaos) Lear calls down upon his kingdomin his rage upon the heath (Kint^ Lear 3.2.1-8). In die flaming tower above Hidetora's head,Kurosawa images Lear's madness, which mirrors the division in the state and the parallel tempestin nature he has caused (KL 2.4.283*86). In Hidciora's empty sheath and mask-like face. Kurosawaimages Lear's impotence and suffering (KL 2.4.272-82). Famous for his meticulous construction ofmise en sc^ne. Kurosawa u-anslates—almost reverentially—verbal poetrj' into film images.

While enabling Shakespeare to speak to a completely different culture and era. Kuro.sawa alsospeaks. Setting Shake.speare's retelling of this legend about familial and national chaos in feudalJapiin. Kurosawa creates a parable about war for a nuclear age. After tJie camage of the film'sclimactic baltle. after ihe deaths of Hidelorj and all his sons (both good and evil)—the film's finalimage FiKUses on the Tom o" Bedlam figure, a former enemy's son whom Hidetora had earlierblinded. L.eft alone on die ruined battlements of a castle that Hidetora had once burned, the blindboy stumbles towai'd the edge ofa precipice. Having survived the hon-ors tliat World War !I broughtto Japan. Kurosawa imagines in Rati a world on the brink of destruction, prompting us U) ask withKent. "Is this the promised end?" (KL 5.3.269). Kunisawii has used Shakespeare's representationof apocalyptic violence in pre-Christi;in Britain lo represent Japan's feudal past, its militarism thatled to World War II. ;uid America'sdevastating nuclear response. Clciirh. F'^in\ relation toitssotircetext i.s not "post-henneneutic." Kurosawa hasenabled the language of Kin^ l^ear to speak inimages and answered with a reinterpretation thatevokes the "historical depth" that FredricJameson finds absent in the ptistmodem aesthetic(16-25).

Whereas Ran translates King Lear as a Westernmasterpiece that speaks to our postnuclearpredicament. The Dresser mocks the elevationof Shakespeare as a beacon of hope in a world atwar. and The King ;.v Alive at first represents hisdnuiia as irrelevant and incomprehensible. While

Dialogue in Shakespearean Offshoots/107

they desacralize "Shakespeare," the icon of high Westem culture, nevertheless both films buildtoward a moment when the words of King Lear are allowed to speak with power and truth. In TheDres.ser, a once prominent but now declining actor-manager always called "Sir" is leading a rag-tagtroupe of actors through a tour of provincial Engl ish cities during the darkest days of Worid War n.-Foiced to play King Lear in a world that seems more and more like Lear's world of suffering. Sirstruggles against eruptions of insanity thiXJUghout his preparations for tlie play, eventually becomingthe role he plays: an impotent patriarch, raging against the loss of his powers. Despite exhaustionand delusions, he summons the will to perform by imagining that "We actors fight on the side oflight vs. the powers of darkness." taking Shakespeare as a beacon of hope to every comer of thekingdom. Still, the off-stage scenes in his dressing room reveal that, beneath his self-representationas a heroic warrior against the "Barbarians." Sir is a narcissistic blow-hard.

The film focuses on the relationship betweenSir and his faithful dresser. Norman, whoseeffeminate mannerisms, anecdotal exempla,cajoling, coaxing, and bullying get the exiiaustedand delusional Sir on stage for a sold-outperformance of King Lear. As the dayprogresses, and the boundaries between "Sir"and the mad king blur, Norman subsumes—one by one—all the supporting roles to Lear'sdrama. Playing children's games like "I Spy":ind singing music hall songs like "A Nice Cupof Tea" to motivate Sir to begin putting on hismake-up. Norman becomes the fool whoseditties and witty banter both distract Lear fromhis rising madness and force him to see the truth.

Like Goneril and Regan, he shamelessly flatters the company's tyraimical patriarch. Then, ascurtain time approaches. Norman revives Sir's broken spirit by leading hitn through the ritua! ofdressing for the performance, as Edgar deceives his blinded father in order to save him from despair.

As Norman becomes Lear's flattering daughters, the ever hopefijl Edgar, and the fool, he alsosubsumes the language of the play. Even though Sir has played Lear 226 times, he cannot rememberhis first line; Norman has to prompt him repeatedly thmugh his part., cues and all. Throughout thedressing room scenes. Shakes[)eare's poetry is fragmented either into mere shoithand designationsfor scenes, or the shattered remnants of Sir's identity, as when he launches into a hilarious medleyof lines from six different plays when trying to remember his lines. As Sir's identity fractures intoa pastiche of his past roles, "Shakespeare" seems to have splintered into random snippets.

Having completed a final, sterling performance of King Lear, Sir lies prostrate in his dressingroom and asks Nonnan to read what he's written so far in his autobiography. As Norman, who hasbeen nipping at a brandy fiask thn>ughoul his ordeal of dressing Sir. reads the acknowledgements,he discovers to his horror that Sir has thanked everyone—except Nonnan. At his moment oftriumph. Sir dies, and Nonnan explodes. Halfdrunk and blinded by tears. Nonnan delivers afmal monologue in which the words spokenby Lear's faithful servants and daughter, andby Lear himself echo through Norman's griefand rage.

In this refusal to leave his dead master,without whom he has no identity. Nonnanechoes the lament of Kent over the dead bodyof Lear (Ai 5.3.328-29). Exhausted by his roleof faithful retainer, however. Norman gives ventto all his repressed feelings—including rage atSir's ingratitude. With Sir gone. Normansubsumes the role of Lear himself, railing against

27

108/DiaIogue in Shakespearean Offshoots

his dau^ters' ingratitude. As the once naive Edgar leams to see the depths of human cruelty, andends King Lear promising lo "Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say" (KL 5.3.331), soNorman, for the first time confesses his contradictory feelings about Sir. These include not onlydevotion and rage, but also deep love. Throughout die film, several daughter figures have competedfor Sir's attention—a young aspiring groupie, the dour but faithful stage manager, and Normanhimself. At Sir's d e ^ . Nonnan confesses that he is the true Cordelia, who. albeit silently, "dotlilove [Lear) most" (KL L1.51). and the film ends with the dresser prostrate in tears over Sir's body,singing tJie fool's song from the storm scene on die hea± (AX 3.2.75-78).

Thus Tfie Dresser both mocks tlie Image of Shakespeare as a beacon of civilization and bearswitness to the power of his tragedy restaged in Norman's harrowing final monologue. TTie fihu'snslationship to its source text is indeed dialogic: Harwood talks back to "Shakespeare" as a culttiralmyth, but then leads the audience to a climactic moment when Shakespeare speaks—as echoes ofKent's, Edgar's, the fool's, Lear's, and Cordelia's words bespeak Norman's suffering.

The King is Alive also questions Shakespeare'splace in the contemporary world, while leadingits audience to a climactic moment in which thewords of King Lear speak the characters' livedexperience. This Dogme 95 film su-ands a busload of hapless travelers at an abandoned Germanmining camp in the African desert—where theonly water is dew collected trom rusting tin roofs,the only food is rusty cans of carrots (the dentedones arc poison), and the only inhabitant is anold miin who .speaks no English. Set against theruins of the colonial past, the stranded travelersbecome a microcosm of contemporary Westemcivilization—ail seen from the perspective ofihe black African, whose beniu.sed voice-overcomments on their phght.

On the morning after their break-down,Henry, a former actor, now paid to read scriptsfor Hollywood B-movies, observes the others,hung over from the night's attempt to dull theirfear by swilling all the booze they brought. He

muses that it won i tx' jnriy rx-iore they begin staging some sort of "fantastic strip tease act of basichuman needs." Laughing. Henry quotes Lear's words when meeting the niikcd. mad Tom o' Bedlamon the heath: "Is man no more than this?" (KL 3.4.103-04). Tliis scrap of Shakespeare engendersthe idea of distracting himself by staging King Lear, and iie begins to write out die play frommemory and to enlist his fellow travelers in rehearsing Shakespeare's most difficult and darkesttragedy.

Ai tliis point the central convention of the genre of films about staging a Shakespeare play takesover the plot: the characters in the filtn's reality take on the identities enacted in the play's fiction.Although parallels between the characters' relationships and the fiction of Shakespeare's playmultiply, the stranded travelers cannot act their roles. At first, they cannot even understand thewords that Heruy has sometimes incompletely remembered. Then a breakthrough (xrcui-s. Whenone traveler mangles Goneril's fiattering speech to Lear and asks Henry to explain who her characteris and wherie she comes from. Henry responds with a recitation of Lear's rejection of Cordelia,Spoken from the depths of his estrangement from his own daughter. The cast's attention is riveted,as if for the first time the undecipherable words, scratched on the backs of the script for SpaceKillers thai Henry brought in his luggage, have emerged into tneaning.

Dialogue in Shakespearean Offshoot&'109

From the perspective of the African observer, however, theactivities of the Westemers make no sense. At first, he notes thatthey are afraid, but that they don't hold each other. Once the rehearsalsbegin, he sees that they walk around saying words without talking toeach other. Watching the Uxjupe sink into despair—as two maniayLsfi^cture. an elderiy American breaks down with die DTs. and racialtensions escalate into violence—the Afiican muses objectively. "Theydidn't understand what they said."

Eventually, however, they do come to understand not only archaicpoetic language spoken with conviction, but also the raw cruelty andsuffering that King Lear enacts. Jealous and annoyed by the diuinessof the innocent American Cordelia, the cynical young French womanpoisons her. Devastated by rejection, a self-absorbed petty bore,who thought the American girl was the love of his life, defiles herdying body and hangs himself. In the film's final scene the shatteredremnant of these stranded travelers sit in the darkness witli the bodyof their Cordelia before them, staring into a huge fire of bu.s tires,their last attempt to be seen and rescued. As the light from the fiamesflickers on their begrimed and anguished faces, one by one theyspeak the words of King Lear that bear witness to the horror they have seen: "This cold night willtum us all to foots and madmen" (3.4.79-80). "Howl. howl, howl! O. you are men of stones. [...]Is this the promised end? [... | A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all; /1 might have saved hennow she's gone forever" (KL 5.3.263. 269, 275-76). Finally, when a party of Africans in a jeep isattracted to the fire, the travelers look toward the headlights, but their faces don't register recognition.It's as if they have finally entered the tragedy of King Lear that they have enacted, and they can nolonger retum to the world from which they came.

When the bus broke down, one savvy traveler told the fearful travelers, before he set out to fmdhelp, that above all else they must keep up their spirits. Amidst the ruins of colonial exploitation,in an abandoned German mining camp, these Westemers try to stage one of their culture's treasures.

But Shake.speare's tragedy provides themneither entertainment nor hope. It has notbeen, as Sir vaunts in The Dresser, a shieldagainst barbarism, because they arethemselves the barbarians. Staging KingLear seems to be a fantastic idiocy to passthe time, and its language seemsincomprehensible. In the end. however, Iheplay's words do allow the Westemers tobear witness to both the cruelty andbaseness that has devastated their party(and much of the world colonized by theWest), and the pity and humanity that Lear,Gloucester, and Edgar leam when they "seehow tliis world goes [... 1 see it feelingly"

{KL 4.6.147-49). Adhering to the Dogme Brotherhood's manifesto, Kristian Levring has mountedhis rebellion against Hollywood special effects through a dialogue that enables Shakespeare'slanguage to speak again.

Whereas Ran translates Shakespeare's words into images that speak to postnuclear Japan, TheDresser and The King is Alive talk back to "Shakespeare." as the icon of high Westem culture, butthen lead their audiences to aclimactic moment when we hear Shakespeare s language in all its tragicforce. No such moment occurs in A Thousand Acres. This eco-fenunist recontextualizadon shifts

I lO/Diaiogue in Shakespearean Offshoots

the play's point of view so that we re-see the familial, social, and even cosmic conflicts of King LearIVom the perspective of Goneril and Regan—a shift that creates chilhng ironies in echoes ofShakespeare's words.

Ginny and Rose are the twu older daughters of Larry, anirascible, aging patriarch who years ago appropriated not only athousand acres of rich midwestem farm land, but also the bodiesof iwo of his three daughters. Whereas the embittered Rose hasnever forgotten Larry's nightly visits to her bed, Ginny, naiveand ever dutiful, has repressed all memories of the abuse. Roselelis Ginny that Lairy did not rdpe her: he seduced her And sheacquiesced for three years because Larry told her that it wasO.K., that she was special, and that he would not becomeinterested in her youngest sister Caroline, the Cordelia figure, solong as Rose complied, This perverse competition that Larry

sets up for Daddy's iove becomes a ghastly transformation of the precipitating action of KingLear—ihe king's fatal question:

Which of you shall we say doth love us most.Thai we our largesl bounty may cxiendWhere nature doih with merit chailcnge. IKL 1.1.31-5?)

Ginny's slow and piainful realizationof the full truth about Larry's versionof demanding love—about hisappropriation of U)th her body andthe land—becomes the centraltrajectory of the plot of A ThousandAcres.

Shots of a seemingly endlessexpanse of cornfields establish tliebackdrop for Ginny's recognition ihather five miscarriages, her mother'scancer, Rose's cancer, and Larry'sdementia are probably the result offertilizers and pesticides that have poisoned the aquifer. Like King Lear. A Tliousand Acres pn>besquestions about the relation of human evi! to cosmic dexastation. Discovering the depths of his

daughters' ingratitude, the enraged Lear imaginesthat, as king, he can summon the forces of natureto ctirse Goneril—to "convey sterility" into herwomb, to "dry up in her the organs of increa.se"{KL 1.4.271-77). Likewise, in A Vwusand Acres,Larry runs away into a thunderstorm, and whenbrought back to the farm, he lashes out at Ginny,replicating Lear's ritual curse: "But you're notreally a womjui. are you? I don't know what youare, just a bitch, is all, just a dried up whore bitch.[...1 You'll never have chiidren." What Ginnycomes to see, however, is that Larry is responsiblefor her miscarriages. Ironically, with his agriculturalchemicals he has dried up his own daughter's

"organs of inciTease." The eerie echoes of Lear's curse in Larry's tirade signal that, although the oldking is impotent to effect his re\'eoge, the modem farmer has cursed liis daugliters witli sterility andcancer.

Dialogue in Shakespearean Offshoot&/111

Whereas Larry never recognizes the evil he has engendered in his family and land, tlie ever naive,sweet Gitmy eventually achieves Lear's tragic enlightenment. The climactic scene in Ginny'stransformation dramatizes the re-emergence of her repressed memories.^ As Larry declines intodementia, he goes to live with his youngest daughter whom he had earlier disowned. Concealed ina store dressing room, Ginny overiiears Larry fawning on Caroline as his "little birdy giri," whosechildhood pranks he fondly recalls. As he pats Caroline and reminisces, Ginny is overwhelmed bythe memory of Lany's late night visits to her bed. Furthermore, she knows that tlie childish pranksLarry recalls were played by Rose, not Caroline. In Larry's nostalgic, mistaken ramblings, Ginnyhears not only the genesis of his lust for Rose, but also his conflation of all his dau^ters intointerchangeable objects for his sexual use.

This climactic scene of recognition ironically echoes I^ear's joy in his reunion with Cordelia,despite the defeat of their forces:

Come, let's away to prison.We two alone will sing hke birds i' the cage.When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel downAnd ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live.And pniy. and sing, and tell old tales, and laughAt gilded butterflies. {KL 5.3.8-13)

Whereas Lear has awakened from madness into a recognition of his guilt and a reconciliation withCordeUa, Lany's maudlin memories of his "little birdy girl" and her childhood pranks are the resultofdementiacausedby his own agricultural chemicals, not a change of heart. In A Thi>usanei AcresLear's lucid moment of reconciliation is replayed as madness, not recognition—as lust, not paternallove. It is Ginny wbo awakens to the truth, Like Edgar, who is shocked out of facile optimism whenhe meets bis blinded father on the heath, Ginny experiences a searing moment of recognition.

Told from the point of view of Lear's "cruel" daughters, A Thousand Acres talks back not to"Shakespeare," the cultural symbol, but to Shakespeare, the playwright whose play is compHcit,Smiley implies, in the patriarehal ideology that engenders the devastation it dramatizes. WhenShakespeare is allowed to speak in these (and many other) poetic echoes, the irony is devastatitig.Smiley has turned Shakespeare's language against itself.

Although these four filmic offshoots of King Lear use little, if any, of the play's words andradically recontextualize setting, character, and action, they nevertheless engage their source text inan intense diaiogue by shifting perspective, translating tiie verbal into the visual, revivifying andironizing Shakespeare's language. Whether the word becomes image (as in Ran), the word becomesflesb (as in The Dresser and The King is Aliv€), or the word is turned against itself (as in AThousand Acres)—these King Lear offshoots are not "post-hermeneutic." They speak through,talk back to, and allow Shakespeare to speak again.

Anna K. NardoLouisiana State University

Notes

' By "adaptation" I mean a fihn that uses Ihe play's language and characters, although it may cutand reairange scenes, relocate the setting, and modemize the action. A filmic "offshotit," however,uses little if any of Shakespeare's language, and radically recontextualizes character, setting, andaction. Kenneth S. Rotiiwell uses "adaptation" for films that rely on Shakespeare's words, and"derivatives" for films that abandon his language altogether. He lists seven types of derivatives (AHistory of Shakespeare on Screen 219). Douglas Lanier discusses the terms "spin-off," "imitation,""revision," "adaptation," "transposition," "reinvention," and "appropriation" in order to argue

112/DiaIogue in Shitkespearean Offshoots

that the term you use determines what you study (4-5). I prefer Tony Howard's term "offshoot"becaase it casts the broadest net and avoids the predetermination Lanier describes.

- Ronald Harwood's script is based on the life of a famous actor-manager. Sir Donald Woifit, withwhom Harwood once worited, and about whom Harwood wrote a popular biography (Canby),

" In the film, these repressed memories resurface in the dressing room scene, whereas in Smiley'snovel they resurface a.s Ginny tidies up her childhood room (Smiley 228-29). Tbis is just one ofmany important clianges from text to film—too many to discuss here.

Works Cited

Buhter, Stephen M. "Camp Richani III and the Burdens of (Stage/Film) History." Shakespeare. Film.Fin de Slide. Ed. Mark Thornton Burnett and Ramona Wray. New York; St. Martin's,2000, 40-57.

Burt, Richard. Unspeakable Shaxxxspeares: Queer Theory and American Kiddie Culture. New York:St. Martin's, 1998.

Canby,Vincent- "Ronald Harwood's 'Dresser.'" New York Times. Online. Lcxis-nexis. 6 Dec. 1983,

Howard, Tony. "Shakespeare's Cinemutic Offshoot.s." V\e Cambridge Companion to Shake.'tpeare onFilm. Ed. Russell Jackson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. 295-313.

Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or. The Cultural Logic of Laie Capitalism. Durham: Duke UP,1991.

Lanier, Douglas. Shakespeare and Modem Popular Culture. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002.

Lchmann, Courtney. Shakespeare Remains: Theater to Film, Early Modem to Postmodern. Ithaca:Cornell UP, 2002.

Rothwell, Kenneth S. A History of Sliakespeare on Screni: A Cemury of Film and Television. Cambridge:Cambridge UP, 1999.

. "How the Twen[ieth-Cen[ury Saw the Shakespeare Film: "Is it Shakespeare?'" Literature/Film Quarterly 29:2 i2tWI): 82-95.

Shakespeare, William. William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Ed. Stephen Orgel and A. R,Braunmuller. New York: Penguin, 2002,

Smiley, Jane, .4 Thousand Acres. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1991.