Argument

The purpose of the present paper is to highlight the strong connection that exists
between various fields of art, in this case, between literature and cinematography and to
show the many ways in which interdisciplinary relations function.
In doing so, we shall analyse three cinematographic adaptations of William
Shakespeares famous play, A Midsummer Nights Dream, their connection to the original,
the characteristics of the productions as well as the modalities in which a consecrated work
of art is able to cross the barriers of its medium (written) in order to belong to another
(visual).
We shall also discuss the versatility of the play as well as its undeniable visual
qualities, which allow for the translation of the play into film as well as the many ways
and the instruments by which film makers are able to transpose written metaphors and
ideas into visual ones.
Furthermore, we must emphasize the important role of cinematography into
bringing the classical works of Shakespeare to the modern audience and of bringing even
the slightest amount of culture to the masses.
 CONTENTS

1. Introduction
2. Theorizing Film
3. A Midsummer Nights Dream A Highly Visual Play
4. The Long and Winding Road from the Stage to the Screen - Visual Metaphors in
Cinematographic Adaptations of A Midsummer Nights Dream
5. Conclusion
6. Bibliography
7. Rezumat

2
 Motto:
All the worlds a stage

Introduction

Our world is constantly expanding and the modern mind is continuously searching
for new modes of expression, new ways of communication. In our modern society, the
visual component has become primordial, therefore art itself has begun to ask for alternate
ways of touching the public and reaching the core of its sensitivity. In order to survive,
even classical works of art need to be offered new coordinates of existence. One of those is
represented (for works of fiction) by film. Cinematographic adaptations of classical works
of art offer both a way of keeping the text into the attention of the modern public and shed
new light upon it.
Each and every new adaptation holds with tradition and respects (more or less) the
original but also represents in itself a completely new work of art, a recreation of the
original, thus ensuring the play/novel a whole new life. This idea might be paralleled by
the final work of the translator, who, in doing his job, transposes the original into another
language but also recreates it into a new piece of writing. Just like the translator, the
director imprints on the film he makes, his own representation of the work, sometimes
called his vision and visually translates it for the public. According to his vision, as well
as his purpose, the same work of art may function on different levels of understanding,
may receive elements that modify the film genre, the atmosphere as well as the moral of
the story, sometimes even without altering the text too much. This is possible because the
visual dimension of cinema is primordial, it transcends and is superior to text. If in the
theatre spoken text is more important, in film (be it cinema or television production) the
impression created by what we see has more impact upon the viewer. Images (if
meaningful and symbolic) speak for themselves and, sometimes, even tell stories. Words
are simply replaced by images. This is a rather natural thing, as sight is mans most
important sense and people perceive and respond better to what they see than to what they
hear.

3
 In dealing with classical texts, the director (along with his team) may alter the text
according to the needs and economy of the film, but also creates the setting, the costumes
in such a way as to fit his intentions while the music is either composed or borrowed to
add to the atmosphere. All of these elements add to the originality of the new creation and
establish it as an entity completely different form the other versions and the play/novel
itself. Among these, a special place must be given to special effects as they represent the
magical tools that enable the team to turn the metaphors from the imaginative level to the
visual one. Be they highly technological (computer-generated images are among the most
common nowadays) or simple, mechanical, they allow for tricks such as physical
metamorphosis, flying scenes, fantastic atmosphere and beings to come alive before the
eyes of the audience.

4
 Theorizing Film

For a very long time theatre was considered the ultimate art, the only one capable of
creating a world of illusion, of pretence and of transposing in a visual code every emotion,
every hope and every state of mind that human beings are capable of experiencing. The
stage was considered to be a place of pure emotion and the performers were the
extraordinary beings capable of translating universal feelings and attitudes into symbol and
myth.
That is why, when the youngest of the arts first came into being, no one granted it
the current status of art, but, rather, as a poor sibling, it was marginalized. Nobody thought
that, in time, the screen would also be able to express emotion and beauty, like any other
art does. However, since those early days, cinematography has risen to the extent that it has
come to rival he ancient theatrical form of art and theatre are many voices who claim that
there is an unbridgeable division, even opposition, between the two arts.
In what follows we are going to discuss the relation between film and theatre and
analyse the many aspects and controversies that arise from this relation.
Susan Sontag, in her article Film and Theatre 1, claims that there is undoubtedly a
gap between the two arts, which are not only different but also antithetical entities. First of
all, the author explains that all the history of cinema has to do with its emancipation the
standards and models of theatrical performance. Film had to set itself free from theatrical
frontality, from theatrical acting (that is, exaggerated, stylized gestures, which had
become unnecessary, due to the existence of the close up), from theatrical furnishings
and evolve into what is called cinematic fluidity, naturalness and immediacy.
The first difference stems from the versatility of the camera eye, in the sense that it
can encapsulate any type of performing art, such as play, ballet or opera, and render it in a
film transcription. That is why we can say that cinema is both a medium and an art. But
theatre can never be a medium. To put it simply, if one can make a movie of a play, but
not the other way round and it is well known that cinema has very early connections with
the stage. Some of the earliest films were in fact, filmed plays. However, there are many
other non-theatrical uses of film, as the recording of unstaged, casual reality (Louis
Lumires shootings of crowd scenes in Paris and New York in the 1890s) or the creation

5
of illusion (The pioneer of such imaginary journeys, objects, physical metamorphoses is
Georges Mlis, whose creations have nothing to do with theatrical techniques).
Moreover, the difference between theatre and film lies in the materials represented
by each of them. In short, if theatre uses artifice as the basis of the performance, cinema is
committed to reality, or, at least the kind of reality that the camera can transpose.
Consequently, films which are shot in real-life settings are supposed to be better than those
created in a studio, but opinions differ among specialists.
Other critics tend to think that the major difference between theatre and film
derives from the fact that film is considered an art of the masses and of the authentic while
theatre, by contrast, implies dressing up and pretence. This vaguely Marxist orientation
also claims that theatre belongs to a more aristocratic taste.
Some others locate the division between theatre and film in the difference between
the play and the film script. Panofsky argues that in the theatre space is static, that is, the
space represented on the stage, as well as the spatial relation of the beholder to the
spectacle, is unalterably fixed while in the cinema the spectator occupies a fixed seat, but
only physically, not as the subject of an aesthetic experience. In other words, the
difference lies in the conditions of viewing a play and those of seeing a movie. A film
spectator is able to identify himself with the lens of the camera and permanently move and
shift his perspective. He also remarks that, historically, cinema doesnt draw its roots from
theatre alone. If films came to be known popularly as moving pictures it is because they
also derive from stationary forms of art, such as paintings, postcards, photography and
comic strips, which is quite a legitimate observation. In fact, movies are images that move,
arent they? However, what defines films is not the image proper, but the connection
between the images, or the relation of a shot to the one that precedes it and the one that
follows after it.
According to other theorists (among which Allardyce Nicoll, in Film and Theatre,
1936) the difference between film and theatre may be understood as a difference in kinds
of characters in the sense that most stage characters are types, stock characters, while in the
cinema characters appear as rather individualized and independent figures. This idea can be
connected to the fact that, often, in films, characterization is strongly based on irrelevant or
unfunctional details having to do with the narrative equivalent of a technique borrowed
from painting and photography: off-centring. This is what creates the fragmentariness in
the characters of many films. On the other hand, in theatre, in order to create unity of

6
character (Which may be mistaken to a certain type) a linear coherence of detail must be
ensured.
This view leads to another distinction between theatre and cinema, namely the use
of space. Through editing (or the change of shot, the basic unit of film construction)
cinema has access to a discontinuous use of space, while theatre is more or less confined
to a logical or continuous use of space. This means that, in theatre, actors are either in the
stage space or off. When they are on, they are always visible or visualizable. This is
not necessary in cinema. Some films, considered theatrical, are those which seem to
emphasize spatial continuities, like Hitchocks Rope. However, cinematic virtue does not
reside in the fluidity of the positioning of the camera nor in the frequency of the change of
shot. It rather consists in the arrangement of screen images and sounds. Film narration has
a certain syntax, made up of the rhythm of associations and disjunctions.
Just as literature cannot be understood and enjoyed without deciphering the
mechanisms that make it up, it is virtually impossible to speak about film and film
adaptations without considering the way in which cinematographers construct their visual
stories. Therefore, it is important to take into consideration aspects of film narratology,
such as enunciation and narration.
It is generally agreed that there can be no story without a storytelling instance.
Films being, in essence, stories too, it is understood that the statement above applies to
them as well. The only major difference between stories or novels and films is that a film
can show an action rather than tell it. However, a problem arises here, as events on the
screen seem to tell their own stories. In other words, the discursive instance seems to be
less apparent than in a written tale. Nevertheless, there always is a mediation between the
story and the public. This leads to another discussion. Where does narratology start from?
Does it start from spectatorial perception or from a system of narrative instances?
Narratologists have provided different answers to this question. According to Andr
Gauderault and Franois Jost2 the first answer focuses on the response of the spectator to
what is seen or heard by the viewer who assumes that what he sees or hears is real while
the second answer focuses on the properties of the film, on the narrative per se, leaving
aside spectatorial response.
In what follows, we shall try to analyse these two points of view. The authors
propose a first approach to narratology, in moving from film to narrative instances.
Consequently, one has to consider the concept of enunciation. In its broadest sense, the
concept signifies the relations between what is said and the sources that produce

7
statements, broadly speaking, the protagonists of the discourse and the situation of
communication. Grard Genette draws attention to the marks or traces that the teller of
the discourse leaves: deictics. For example, when a novel begins with I am alone here,
now, sheltered (The Labyrinth, Alain Robe-Grillet, 1959) the reader naturally asks
himself: Who is this I? When is now in the story? What defines here and being
sheltered? Such questions cannot be answered until one identifies the storyteller (with a
name or description) and the place or moment of utterance. An utterance that only uses
deictics (the adverbs here, now; the pronoun I; and the present tense) can only be
decoded when we know the speakers identity.
Consequently, theorists of cinematographic enunciation have tried to discover such
deictic markers in film. Franois Jost3 identifies six cases where the subjectivity of the
image is clear: an exaggerated foreground, suggesting the proximity of the lens, produced
by either discrepancy of scale, or by an opposition between fuzziness and clarity; a point
of view below eye level (common to Orson Welless work); representation of a body part
in the foreground, which gives the impression that the camera is anchored in a point of
view (the road is seen as double when drunk North by Northwest, Hitchcock, 1959); a
characters shadow; seeing the viewfinder, framing devices, or a keyhole in the image; a
shaking camera.
If more modernist cinema stresses the marks of filmic enunciation, classical cinema
always tried to suppress these marks in order to stress what was happening to the
characters or what was told by explicit narrators. Similarly, documentaries are generally
made in a way that draws more attention to what happens than the manner in which it is
filmed. Nevertheless, in both cases, the presence of the grand image-maker is more or less
perceptible. For instance, lets take the case of a flashback in which a character becomes a
storyteller. After recording a few sentences of his story, images show his life and his story.
To understand the story, the spectator must suppose that the narrator takes responsibility
for the audiovisual story and assume that this audio visualization is faithful to the verbal
narrative that he is supposedly still dictating.
The second approach to narratology presupposes moving from narrative instances
to film. Because it shows characters in action who imitate human beings in diverse daily
activities, including speaking, cinema has a predilection for narrative delegation, or
embedded discourses. In speaking, people often use the narrative function of the language.
In film, there is always a double narrative as cinema uses five modes of expression:
images, sounds, words, written materials and music. Therefore, we can state that in the

8
cinema, a narrative that is the product of a visualized narrator is merely a sub-narrative
because, in effect, film already tells, if only in showing the narrator in the process of
telling.
Because of the young age of the domain (as compared to other arts, film is rather a
newly-born art) and because of a sort of reticence regarding the domain, the study of
film was undertaken rather late, around the 1960s. However, during that period, film
courses were mainly part of humanities curriculum, took place in departments of English,
theatre, comparative literature and foreign languages courses. The proliferation of art
theatres in urban areas encouraged Americans to take film seriously and to study mainly
films produced by great European creators, such as Bergman, Fellini, Godard. These film
courses often approached film as a traditional art form, including subjects such as
adaptations of theatre and literature into film, inter-arts comparisons as well as the careers
and work of film auteurs. It was in the late 1960s and early 1970s that film studies
became a discipline in its own right. Film studies mainly attracted young scholars who
desired an alternative to traditional academic disciplines and imported from France both
the theory and the rebellious feeling that came with it. French intellectuals had become
interested in film much earlier, in the early 1920s and continued to do so even after World
War II when popular film journals appeared, such as La Revue du cinma, Positif and the
more famous Cahiers du cinma, featuring the writing of well-known critics like Andre
Bazin or filmmakers Franois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard or Eric Rohmer. Through
scholars who were interested in French thinking and writing, soon film studies were also
expanded to America. Carl Plantinga4 mentions publications like The American Cinema
(1968) which imported the auteur theory and determined many to consider Howard
Hawks, Alferd Hitchock or John Ford as auteurs that is, film artists. In the early 1970s,
the film journal Screen (which was to become the most influential film theory publication
in Britain and the United States) published extensively about the new film theory and
French film study.
What many film theorists look for in their exploits is the way(s) in which cinematic
phenomena are connected to particular historical conditions and to ideology. For the most
part, they differ from traditional aestheticians in that they place emphasis on putting film in
a cultural context. David Bordwell, a film scholar, argues that much of what passes for
theory in film studies is, in fact, a form of critical interpretation of texts. He argues that
interpretation takes a central place in film studies and proposes that they make
interpretation more peripheral, and engage in a lively, sceptical debate that should

9
encourage self criticism, questions, debate and study of alternatives. He also explains that
there are two categories of interpretation in film studies explicatory and symptomatic.
Explicatory interpretation looks for explicit and implicit meanings of a text, while
symptomatic criticism looks for repressed meaning, linking it to social and political
concerns. Symptomatic criticism is a hallmark of psychoanalytic semiotics and this may
explain the wide gap between film theory and aesthetics, for traditional aesthetics has not
shown any interest in psychoanalysis. The former makes use of cognitive psychology and
its investigation of the rational workings of the mind, while the latter prefers to see the
viewer/ reader as a rational agent. Neither alternative is entirely correct, though, claims
Plantinga. If cognitive psychology emphasizes rationality, it does not account for emotion
and desire. On the other hand, symptomatic criticism (making use of psychoanalysis)
reduces the spectator to a simpleton or a dupe subject to illusion and unaware of the
ideological effects of the film processes.
In speaking about film theory and philosophy it is also very important to grasp the
role of imagination and interpretation in viewing and analyzing cinematographic
productions. Gregory Currie analyzes the nature of imagination, the centrality of
impersonal imaginings in our responses to films and obviously defends implied author
intentionalism. Currie explains that what we know about other peoples minds is done by
simulating their mental states. He describes simulation with the help of a term drawn from
computing, stating that simulation is a matter of running mental states (namely beliefs and
desires) off-line. Running mental states off-line is thus a matter of them being
disconnected from their normal sensory inputs and behavioural outputs 5 In other words,
he claims of imaginings that while they lack the connections of belief to the external
world via perception and behaviour, they retain some internal connections they retain
6
belief-like connections to other mental states and to the body For instance, if one
believes that there is a bear in front of him this will be produced by a perception of a bear
and will lead to flight-behaviour. But if one imagines that there is a bear in front of him,
this is not usually produced by the perception of a bear and it will not lead to flight, but to
an imaginary decision to flee. In conclusion, imaginings are not as connected to the outer
world as beliefs are. According to the author, beliefs and imaginary beliefs can be
distinguished by their functional role with respect to their external connections. In the
simulation theory we understand others not by constructing theories for their behaviour but
by putting ourselves in their position.

10
 Moreover, with regard to imagining, Currie makes the point that visual imagining
need not take the form of imagining seeing. Some participation theorists claim that when
someone watches a film, she imagines seeing the events depicted and becomes fictionally a
member of the fictional world, observing the events from the point of view established by
the perspective of the image. In other words, the viewer becomes in a way a sort of
invisible observer of the events. However, the critic explains that the imagining may be
impersonal and that, in general, imagining in cinema is impersonal. The main argument
against the participation theory is that the spectator would sometimes have to imagine
absurdities, like imagining that he is hanging from the ceiling if the shot is taken from the
ceiling of a room or that he suddenly found a way of teleportation, if the camera shifts
locations.
The author is also interested in the issue of narrative interpretation, or working out
what a story tells us. This, he claims, is a matter of story-telling intentions, that is, of what
the author intends to tell us. In the case of films, the evidence for the assignment of these
intentions is the appearance meaning of a shot, what a shot appears to depict to someone
who lacks knowledge about the rest of the film or the actors. Thus, an interpreter of film
narration may ask himself: Why is that shot, with just that appearance, inserted in the film
just at this point, between these other shots? The answer will be: because the insertion of
that shot was intended to tell us something about what is happening in the story 7 The
intentions assigned are not those of the actual author (Real Author Intentionalism). But
Currie supports Implied Author Intentionalism, which means that what a story tells is given
by what its implied author intended.
In 1923 Bla Balzs described movies as the herald of a new visual culture that
will give us back our bodies, our faces, which have been rendered soulless and
inexpressive by the century-old ascendancy of print. He might have been right. The
answers to that may still lie in waiting for a new age to come, for a new form of expressing
artistic expression that we still havent discovered. But until then, the cinema is very much
a part of our lives, of our souls and our minds.

Notes

1. Susan Sontag Film and Theatre in Film Theory and Criticism, ed. By Gerald
Mast, Marshall Cohen and Leo Braudy, Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 362
2. Andre Gauderault and Francois Jost Enunciation and Narration in Blackwell p 45-
46

11
3. Francois Jost Narration: en deca et au de-la Communications 38, Enonciation et
cinema , 1983
4. Plantinga, Carl Film Theory and Aesthetics in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism, p 448
5. Gregory Currie Image and Mind: Film, Philosophy and Cognitive Science,
Cambridge, CUP, 1995, p.144
6. Gregory Currie Image and Mind: Film, Philosophy and Cognitive Science,
Cambridge, CUP, 1995, p.149-50
7. Gregory Currie Image and Mind: Film, Philosophy and Cognitive Science,
Cambridge, CUP, 1995, p. 256

12
 A Midsummer Nights Dream A Highly Visual Play

Probably composed around 1595 or 1596, A Midsummer Nights Dream, remains

one of the most influential plays of William Shakespeares work. One of his strangest and
most delightful plays, it marks a departure from earlier works and from others of the
Renaissance. Harry Blamires1 considers that it marks the change to maturity of the author
and that the workmanship is deft, the poetry almost unfailing. Indeed, the play
demonstrates both the great extent of Shakespeares learning and the everlasting power of
his fertile imagination.
What is truly remarkable about the play is the fact that, (unlike many of his other
creations and a somewhat common practice of the period) its plot does not seem to be
drawn from any particular source. However, the range of references in the play is
impressive: the characters are inspired from various sources, like Greek mythology
Theseus is loosely based on the Greek hero of the same name and there are many
references in the play to Greek gods and goddesses; English fairy lore Puck or Robin
Goodfellow, a mischievous sprite, popular in sixteenth-century stories; theatrical practices
of Shakespeares London the craftsmens play parodies many conventions of
Renaissance theatre, like men playing roles of women; Titania, the queen of fairies is
drawn from Ovids Metamorphoses.
Moreover, it is highly possible that the author was also inspired by real-life
happenings, like the so-called Scottish lion-incident, an episode which occurred at the
Scottish court in 1594, when, at a festive occasion, a chariot was drawn in by a black moor
instead of a lion, as this should have caused fear in the audience. Likewise, Bottom and his
fellows plan a performance before their sovereign and anticipating the fear that bringing a
lion among ladies might produce, they decide to replace the beast with a member of the
cast.
It is generally agreed among scholars and art historians, that the play was originally
composed for a wedding in a noble household. The Dream has many marks of a wedding
play. The owner of this palace, is blest by the fairies with the promise that he Ever shall
in safety rest, may have been identified not solely with Theseus, but also with the owner
of a mansion where a real wedding was celebrated. The theme of the play is undoubtedly

13
love consummated in marriage. This is announced from the opening lines: our nuptial
hour/ Draws on apace and its human action ends with Theseus saying: Lovers, to bed. It
is true that most romantic comedies end with marriage, but, among Shakespeares, only
one, ending with the masque of Hymen seems to have been part of a wedding
entertainment.
The Dream is also deeply connected to and reflects traditional elements, such as the
May-game, connected to the ancient fertility cult. The observaunce to May was
everybodys pastime. It is easy to notice the connection between the Dreams whole
action with the movement of the May-game, from the town to the woods and back,
bringing home the summer. One can associate the coming to court of the artisans, and even
of the fairies with their blessing, with the good-luck visit of a May King and May Queen.
The May Queen presented the person of the Summer Lady, with whom Titania is
associated when she declares to Bottom that The summer still doth tend upon my state.
Oberon, the traditional fairy ruler, has characteristics of the May King, patron of new and
renewed fertility. The power he uses to end the dispute between himself and Titania or to
further happy and prospectively fruitful marriages for the young lovers is elemental and
drawn from the core of nature. Moreover, the title sends to St Johns Eve and its
associations with magic.
At the time, midsummer magic was proverbial and even Olivia uses the
expression in Twelfth Night. The lovers follies in the wood fit the season, both as folly,
and as induced by magic. The fairies include all the characteristics of fairies in popular
belief: they appear at midnight, in the forest, and leave at sunrise; they take children etc.
The size of the fairies differs from the size of fairies in folk-belief. If in the latter
case, they sometimes appear even in adult human size, Shakespeares fairies have more
diminutive dimensions. The audience is made to imagine elves with leathern coats made of
bats wings, who crep into acorn cups when frightened or venture to raid a squirrels hoard
which create beautiful visual images. Dialogue also plays an important part in creating the
picture of the fairies world, as Cobweb (though before the eyes of the audience he is at
child-size) is commissioned to hunt the bumble-bee, taking care not to be overflown with
the honey bag.
The incredible visual quality of the play also has a lot to do with the fantastic world
of dreaminess that Shakespeare created, with the alternation of night and day, of fantasy
and reality, of truth and illusion. The characters are taken from one state to another, from
rationality to irrationality, and even, to a sort of madness which belongs to the lunatic, the

14
lover and the poet. In fact, the changes of setting and state of mind are so frequent and so
incredible that they rather lead the modern audience to imagine a change of shot, specific
to film, than the changes of setting in a play.
Other elements which highly contribute to the atmosphere and the spectacle of the
Dream are lyricism, music and dance. This supports the idea that, generally, poetry is
enhanced by the qualities of music. The grotesque Borgomask, with music to match,
contrasts with the graceful dances and their music before and after.
Moreover, the verse and language are very often in themselves exquisitely musical.
For instance, speeches like that of the fairy: Over hill, over dale,/ Thorough bush,
thorough brier,/ Over park, over pale,/Thorough flood, thorough fire,/ I do wander
everywhere,/ Swifter than the moon's sphere;/ And I serve the fairy queen,/ To dew her
orbs upon the green./ The cowslips tall her pensioners be:/ In their gold coats spots you
see;/ Those be rubies, fairy favours,/ In those freckles live their savours/I must go seek
some dewdrops here/ And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. (Act 2, Scene I) or like that
of Oberon (I know a bank...) are famous for their musical quality as well as for their
imagery, which is equally lyrical.
What is also interesting about the play is the many forms of the verse. These
variations have the role of defining the character of the different groups: except for the
prose in Act V, Thesesus and Hippolyta always speak in blank verse; the lovers, though
generally using the pentameter, move back and forth from rhymed speech. If there are
changes of verse within a group, these are generally made for dramatic purposes, such as
the modulation of emotion. Thus, the quarrel-scene of the lovers reaches climax in blank
verse, after their more formal, but rhymed speech. In the same way, the confrontation of
Oberon and Titania requires blank verse, in keeping both with its emotional quality and
their royal dignity. In Titanias scenes with Bottom the contrast between her blank verse
and the artisans prose provides the separation between her, as the Fairy Queen, and
Bottom, as a commoner and a human being. The incantations are written in short rhymed
lines; all but one in the short couplet. Granville Barker 2 explains that the metre, no less than
the meaning, carries the suggestion of a fairy kind of supernatural in its lightness, its
strange simplicity. A fine example of this are Oberons lines after the dance of
reconciliation: Then my queen, in silence sad,/ Trip we after nights shade:/ We the globe
can compass soon,/ Swifter than the wandering moon. He also observes that the play
abounds in passages designed for varied art in their delivery: Oberons visions of the

15
mermaid and of Cupid; Pucks My fairy lord, this must be done with haste and Oberons
reply. In all these there is a lyrical note.
When the verse is so varied in its forms and so often, lyrical in tone, there is no
great distance from dialogue to song. All the songs and dances are as much part of the play
as the spoken part of it. Amongst these, the lullaby plays an important part in the action as
well as in the creation of a lyrical atmosphere. It helps Titania fall asleep when Oberon
casts the love-juice spell upon her. Although the dance and song of the fairies are meant to
protect her from harm, they do not stop the fairy king from casting the spell. In a way they
never fail their purpose, as the spell is ultimately for her own good. Moreover, the lullaby
is part of the dramatic pattern: Titania falls asleep to the lullaby and is awakened by the
coarse singing of Bottom. This pattern of fairy music (which induces sleep) versus mortal
music (which awakens) is repeated in the instrumental music at the denouement. Thus it is
necessary that while Oberon and Titania dance, the five still sleeping characters should
remain so (the lovers and Bottom the former are awakened by the hunting horns of
Theseus attendants and the latter, a little later).
As well as songs, dance is an essential part of the action and emphasizes its
symmetric structure. The dance of Oberon and Titania marks the reconciliation of the fairy
rulers and also stands for the renewed dance of nature which depends upon them. In a way,
it mirrors the dance of Titanias fairies from which Oberon was absent and to his earlier
refusal to dance with her on her terms. The end of the play also presupposes dancing, as,
the blessing spoken in lyrical short couplets is sung as well as danced. In the theatre,
symbolic dance and especially music can transport the audience far beyond the level of
reality and in he Dream they prepare or accompany the supernatural. A very good example
is provided by the lullaby which is danced and sung as a charm, preparing for the magic of
the love-juice. The lullaby invokes Philomel, the nightingale, the most melodious bird of
the natural world and the lyric voice of love. It is obvious that, the lyrical feeling of the
Dream springs from multiple sources, from romantic love as well as from the beauty of
nature and the marvel of fairyland. The incredible beauty of the spectacle is given by dance
and costume, the setting, but not necessarily the physical one, rather that appealing to
imagination through music and verse.
In his struggle to bring before the minds eye more than the actual scene presents to
bodily vision, the artists tools often are allusion and imagery. They also helped
Shakespeare give birth to one of the worlds most remarkable and enduring plays, an

16
exquisite fairy-piece3 which exalted the imagination of many and was repeatedly
translated by visual artisans or film-makers.
In the Dream they often take the form of lists, vignettes or panoramas. The lists are
generally simple and concrete. However, this does not prevent them from creating a
fantastical atmosphere as they are made up of: showers of apricocks and figs and
dewberries, honey and butterflies and bees and worm-glows which figure in Titanias
commands. The vignettes feature glimpses of single figures and activities: Lysander
courting; the old dame made to spill the ale in her withered dewlap; the sick man who
hears the owl screech and is put in remembrance of a shroud. The panoramas (such as
Oberons seascape with the siren and Cupid or Titanias with herself and her Indian friend)
are composed of sharp and realistic details.
The main function of these devices is to create the setting of the main action, the
wood, in revealing it both as woodland and as the dwelling place of the fairies. The author
mentions the woods even before the characters actually reach the location, in order to
create the atmosphere and raise the audiences expectations of the setting: Helena speaks of
faint primrose beds and we also hear of the Dukes oak. The setting is also established
by way of the charming dwellings of the fairies. The first fairy who appears onstage speaks
of cowslips as Titanias pensioners. Moreover, it is her duty to hang dew-drop pearls in the
cowslips ears and to dew orbs upon the green, where the fairy rounds are danced. Others
have to fulfil duties such as killing cankers in the musk-rose buds, plucking the wings of
painted butterflies for fans, fighting with bats in order to make diminutive leathern coats
out of their skin, hunting the bees for their honey-bags and wax and lighting beeswax
candles at the fiery eyes of glow-worms. One, who is especially daring, is ready to raid the
squirrels hoard of nuts while acorn cups become the hiding place of the elves, when scared
of their masters quarrel.
The descriptions give life to the setting and even the most humble element of stage
prop is invested with new qualities by the power of lyricism. For instance, the bank where
Titania sleeps might have been a more or less decorated object in each performance but it
is Oberons description which invests it with romantic beauty:
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,/ Where oxlips and the nodding violet
grows,/ Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,/ With sweet musk-roses and with
eglantine:/ There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, / Lull'd in these flowers with dances
and delight; / And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin, / Weed wide enough to wrap a
fairy in (Act 2, Scene I).

17
 In the same way, Quince appreciates the green plot and hawthorn brake as
marvellous convenient for the rehearsal, while Theseus in hunting costume gives contour
to the woodland scene.
The imagery created by verse gives an irresistible impression of rural beauty which
our imagination transforms into the wood setting. More than once, the imagery is of the
ocean: the shore, and, with the leviathan, beyond it. In this way, the setting is widened (at
least for the imagination of the audience) beyond the wood and becomes the world of
nature itself. The image of high Taurus snow and the talk of hunting in Crete, in Sparta
or in Thessaly take us outside the immediate scene. The lightning in the collied night
and the far-off mountains turned into clouds rather belong to universal nature imagery.
The setting is extended so that it takes in hostile features both of universal nature and of
the wood: the evil season Titanis describes, the wild beasts, the owl and other possible
intruders on her sleep. The world of fairies is extended as well as all nature suffers when its
rulers are at enmity. We notice that their empire stretches to the farthest step of India
(it was in India that Titania and her unfortunate friend sat together). Moreover, Puck can
put a girdle round about the earth/ In forty minutes. But his sphere of influence also
reaches the realm of familiar life, through the pranks he plays on the village people, or the
services he sometimes does them. As Robin Goodfellow, known to the villagery, Puck
becomes the link between fairyland and folklore.
The natural setting in the play may be associated with the pastoral as with Ovidian
mythology. Shakespeare borrows from the pastoral Shepheardes Calender and Oberons
lines on Titanias flowery bank might be compared with the catalogues. As in Venus and
Adonis, Shakespeare combines the natural world with the mythological world of the
Metamorphoses. The yellow sands are Neptunes, the morning star is Auroras harbinger,
Helena inverts the legend of Apollo and Daphne and there are many other allusions to
mythology in the play.
Part of the wood setting is represented by the night sky, with the stars and the
planets, but above all governs the almighty moon, which also seems to govern the whole
play with its supernatural power. From ancient times, the moon is believed to have a strong
influence on people and their behaviour and part of the characters folly could be
explained by the moons influence. Popular belief also invests the moon with magic
powers. In the Dream, the moon is both a celestial body and a goddess, Phoebe, Luna, one
of the forms of Hecate. The moon reigns over the Dream in many of her aspects. She
appears from the opening lines of the play, in Theseus speech and Hippolytas reply, where

18
the while that separates them from their nuptials is measured with reference to her. The
play is actually framed between this dialogue and the concluding fairy ritual and allusions
to the moon punctuate their relationship: their quarrel-scene, ended with Oberon rejecting
Titanias invitation to see our moonlight revels and began with his challenge : Ill met by
moonlight, proud Titania. The moon is also significant for the three other groups as well
as an important link between all four. Thus Theseus associates his impatience with the
moon, Hippolytas image of the crescent as a silver bow connects with Diana the huntress,
not only the moon but herself, the Amazon, while Hermia and Lysander decide to elope,
and the artisans to rehearse, by moonlight.
What is more, the artisans have trouble with the moonlight in the story of Pyramus
because they consider difficult to bring moonlight into the chamber at the performance.
The adoption of Quinces proposal, to cast Starveling as Moonshine, makes the moon
motif one of the connections between the burlesque of their performance and the romance
of the main play. Moreover, Starvelings impersonation of the Man in the Moon is one of
the shifts of identity which carry the theme of metamorphosis through the play.
In the end, it becomes all too clear that A Midsummer Nights Dream, apart from
being a masterpiece of Shakespearian and world drama in itself, carries the attributes of a
highly visual work of art. In the choice of theme, the lyricism of the text, the featured
songs and dances, the Bard created a unique and moving work of art which becomes more
memorable with each and every performance. Moreover, it offers the possibility of
crossing the art borders and becoming renewed by equally magical film performances, thus
revealing new shades of meaning and creating original and fascinating visual universes.

Notes

1. Harry Blamires A Short History of English Literature, Methuen and Co, London,
1974, p. 60
2. Granville Barker Prefaces to Shakespeare , Vol. VI
3. Emile Legoius and Louis Cazamian A History of English Literature, JM Dent and
Sons, New York, 1971, p. 415

19
 The Long and Winding Road from the Stage to the Screen
Visual Metaphors in Cinematographic Adaptations of A Midsummer
Nights Dream

Bringing Shakespeares plays from the stage to the big or the small screen is hardly
a new enterprise. In fact, various adaptations of his plays have concerned directors and
producers since the beginning of the century to the present, and countless screen versions
have been released in both Europe and America. Still, why would anyone want to bring
Shakespeare to the screen? This comes across as a just question. In an age of progress and
technology, when film has come a long way and the subjects are countless, why would
anyone bother with 400-year-old topics and situations? Why not leave them for the stage,
for which they have been created? The answer comes swiftly and clearly. Because todays
society, no matter how busy and pragmatic it may be, still needs access to real culture, to
an extraordinary world of art and illusion that Shakespeares universe represents.
In the battle between television and the big screen, towards the end of the twentieth
century, it looked as if television had displaced cinema as the medium for bringing
Shakespeare to the modern audience. This is quite understandable as television productions
are notably cheaper than films are and also because television makes culture available to a
wider category of public, eager to receive Shakespeare plays in their own living rooms.
Still, Anthony Davies1 argues that we are also witnessing a renaissance of Shakespearian
cinema at the turn of the twentieth century, with productions such as Kenneth Branaghs
Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing (1989), Franco Zeffirellis Hamlet (1990), Christine
Edzaeds As You Like It (1992), Michael Hoffmans A Midsummer Nights Dream (1999)
and many others.
However, not all Shakespearian creations have been treated equally by the seventh
art. Among the most adapted plays we can mention the great tragedies, the Roman plays
and the comedies.
A Midsummer Nights Dream stands out as one of the most adapted and interpreted
plays, due to its highly visual and representational qualities. There have been many who
tried their hand at bringing it to the screen, from the beginning of the twentieth century to
the dawn of the twenty-first century. In Shakespeare and the Moving Image, Graham

20
Holderness2 mentions at least fifteen productions starting as early as 1909 and ending with
a 1984 British- Spanish co-production. Some of them are produced for the big screen,
some for television, some of them are created by American artists, others by Europeans,
but all of them have one thing in common: they try to recreate, more or less, the
extraordinary world of magic and fantasy of the eternal A Midsummer Night's Dream. The
text shows its great versatility with each new interpretation depending on the director's
vision, A Midsummer Night's Dream can be a light fantasy, a dark nightmare, a comedy, or
a semi-serious melodrama.
I have chosen to discuss the visual metaphors and the individualities of the
recreation of the play in three adaptations I believe are among the most memorable and
praiseworthy screen versions of the play: the high budget cinema adaptation of 1935,
produced by Warner Brothers and directed by the famous Max Reinhardt; the 1981 BBC
production, featuring Helen Mirren and last, but not least, one of the most recent
adaptations of the play for the big screen the 1999 production, starring well-known
names in the American film industry.
In what follows, I shall try to analyse the treatment of the themes and symbols in
each production, the degree of fidelity to the original play, the characters, the costumes, the
setting, the music, and, most importantly, the effect created on the spectator by the visual
symphony created by each film.
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) is a film directed by Max Reinhardt and
William Dieterle, produced by Henry Blanke and Hal Wallis, and adapted by Charles
Kenyon and Mary C. McCall Jr. from the play by William Shakespeare.
The cast includes James Cagney as Nick Bottom, a teenage Mickey Rooney as
Puck, Olivia de Havilland as Hermia, Joe E. Brown as Francis Flute, Dick Powell as
Lysander and Victor Jory as Oberon. Many of the actors in this version had never
performed Shakespeare before, and never would do so again, notably Cagney and Brown,
who were nevertheless highly acclaimed for their performances in the film.
Felix Mendelssohn's music was used, but re-orchestrated by Erich Wolfgang
Korngold. Not all of it was from the incidental music that Mendelssohn had composed for
A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1843. Other pieces used were excerpts from the Symphony
No. 3 Scottish, the Symphony No. 4 Italian, and the Songs without Words, among others.
The ballet sequences featuring the fairies were choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska. The
film won two Academy Awards - Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing. It also
received nominations for Best Picture and Best Assistant Director.

21
 First of all it must be well understood the special status that the play has among
Shakespearian creations both as a comedy and as a fantasy. Fantasy may be defined as
action that evokes the response I nearly believed it, according to Tzvetan Todorov.3 A
Midsummer Nights Dream, just like The Tempest, tries to create convincing
representations of reality as well as to offer new and intriguing ways of showing the unreal.
In the film, it is the lovers, who occupy a middle ground between the mechanicals and the
fairies in terms of speech and behaviour, who present the most difficulty in presenting.
Thus, Theseus and Hippolyta exist in a world of legend and courtly ceremony and do not
have to display a natural behaviour. Puck mediates between the supernatural and the
ordinary and through Mickey Rooneys hyperactive performance is at once a satyr and the
boy next door. The mechanicals are so quaintly comic that their area of the film seems
stylized and the elaboration of the gags makes it clear that we are watching behaviour that
does not necessarily try to imitate reality. Among the series of verbal and physical tics
(such as Flutes constant nibbling of nuts) James Cagneys performance as Bottom seems
subtle and ironic. Bottom seems to be the least histrionic of the actors, expect, of course,
when he is acting or talking about it or when he is under the influence of the supernatural.
His reaction to the bodily transformation into an ass is expressed by a convulsory
trembling of his body (and the camera lowers to show his knees and legs twitching), but
his performance doesnt get more exaggerated than that. Russell Jackson4 argues that it
may be impossible to separate Cagney and Rooneys performances form their earlier roles
in the sense that they both are lifelike and lively but more vivid than life itself. He also
states that with little more adjustment than a change of clothes this Puck and Bottom
could respectively cheek the grown-ups in a small town or order a beer in a bar room.
Special effects are generally the prerogative of big screen (usually big budget)
representations and help the director bring his vision to the eyes of the audience in creating
the atmosphere and the world of illusion they are depicting. In this production of the
Dream, special effects seem to occupy a very special place, which adds a lot to the creation
of the dream-like world of the fairies. They range between elaborate artifice (optical
effects, matte painting, filters, flying rigs, set-construction) and nature itself (real sky and
landscape, animals and birds). The film also creates a fantasy Athens. After the titles, a
written proclamation is shown, commanding the citizens of Athens to celebrate Theseus
return to the city. Afterwards, the spectator witnesses the triumphant arrival of the
conquering army, featuring Lysander and Demetrius, and in this way the relations between
the four young lovers are established. The action is accompanied by an oratorio-like chorus

22
which is dangerously reminiscent of the Hail Freedonia number in the Marx Brothers
Duck Soup. All this moves into the main strands of the plot and establishes the level of
performance among the mortals: eloquent and stately for the rulers, smart for the lovers
and comic for the workmen.
The setting is spacious and theatrical and establishes a grand scale for the mortal
world that will be surpassed only by the lavishness of the wood, when we see the fairies
swirling and dancing across the huge expanse of territory built on two adjacent sound
stages. The opening makes it clear that Theseus world has grandeur that only cinema can
manage convincingly.
Moreover, the display of cinematic tricks in the first fairy scene, marking arrival
into the wood, bears some resemblance to the elaborate set-ups and choreography of song-
and-dance scenes in musicals, even if the dancers never acknowledge an audience. The
fairies appear as ethereal beings, with diaphanous veils and long flowing hair over
apparently naked bodies, while optical effects cover the screen with twinkling stars and
bounce light off sequins on faces and clothing, accompanied by a performance of
Mendelssohns music, giving the impression of a quasi-sexual fantasy. The sequence which
shows Oberons bat-like attendants rounding up fairies in what seems a cross between the
original choreography of the Rite of Spring (the dance director was B. Nijinska) and an
old-fashioned painting of the Rape of the Sabines.
However, Jackson5 argues that despite the dream-like qualities of the film, which
cannot be denied, there are also some aspects which somewhat interfere with the
enjoyability of the work. The voices of the fairies are to some extent odd. Titanias voice
seems painfully affected and her gestures rather wooden while Victor Jorys (Oberon)
vocal performance is staid and pompous. Besides, his character hardly moves at all, deeply
contrasting with the movement in Titanias character. In addition, Cagneys ass-head hardly
allows him to use any of the subtlety of expression necessary in responding to Titanias
sweet words.
The Reinhardt adaptation remains a notable example of a studios desire to enhance
its public image by presenting the wok of Shakespeare as well as its efforts to bring the
works of the great author to the public and makes it clear that the techniques and scope of
some cinematographic productions correspond to the needs of the play. The film has a
fresh, ambitious quality and, had the film-makers been able to use colour photography, the
result would have probably been more telling.

23
 The A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) film adaptation is one of the most recent
productions translating the play for the big screen. From the very beginning it announces
itself as being slightly different from both the original and its earlier counterparts in that
the setting does not entirely correspond to the Shakespearian original. The director,
Michael Hoffman decided to shift the setting from 16th century Greece to Tuscany, Italy, in
the late 1800s, in the small village of Monte Athena. Thus, the setting and social conditions
of the time are clearly established from the very beginning, by a few lines appearing on the
screen and which read: The village of Monte Athena in Italy at the turn of the nineteenth
century. Necklines are high. Parents are rigid. Marriage is seldom a matter of love
Although the film was reset in Italy, every mention of Athens, Greece (the play's original
setting) was still retained. Moreover, the lines at the beginning mention the bicycle a
relatively new invention at the time which becomes a key prop, allowing characters to
pedal after each other instead of chasing around on foot. It also provides one of the movie's
most amusing sight gags, as the fairy Puck (played by Stanley Tucci), who has never
before seen one, gingerly prods it as if expecting it to suddenly come to life and attack.
Indeed, while every line of dialogue comes from Shakespeare, the visual approach is very
much Hoffman's.
If in other film versions the fairies do not seem to interact much with the mortals in
their own environment (except, of course for their presence at the wedding and afterwards,
according to the plays text), in Hoffmans film, the fairies make their entry form the very
beginning, in the form of sparkling little entities, appearing in broad daylight and in every
aspect of life of the villagers. Thus, they seem to visit the kitchen, the village centre etc.
Moreover, the world of mortals itself seems to invade the dwelling place of the fairies,
the woods. Different scenes show the fairies playing with objects belonging to the world of
mortals, such as the bicycle or gramophone parts.
Just like the earlier version of 1935, the film used portions of Felix Mendelssohn's
incidental music to the 1843 stage production of the play, along with generous helpings of
music from Italian opera.
Logically, the basic story has not changed, even though the locale and time period
have. A Midsummer Night's Dream opens by introducing Duke Theseus, who is preparing
for his wedding to the reluctant Hippolyta (Sophie Marceau). Theseus is called in to
resolve a dispute centring on the romantic inclinations of Hermia, the daughter of Egeus.
While the girl wants to marry the dashing Lysander, whom she loves, her father has
betrothed her to Demetrius (Christian Bale). When Theseus' ruling goes against them,

24
Hermia and Lysander resolve to elope. Meanwhile, Demetrius is being pursued by Helena
(Calista Flockhart), who is willing to suffer any number of humiliations to be with him.
These four, along with an actor named Bottom (Kevin Kline), end up in a nearby forest on
a night when the nymphs, satyrs, and fairies are out and about. The King of the Fairies,
Oberon (Rupert Everett), is quarrelling with his queen, Titania (Michelle Pfeiffer). To
untangle matters, Oberon enlists his servant, Puck, to procure a love potion, of which he
says, "The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid will make or man or woman madly dote upon
the next live creature that it sees." However, not everything goes according to plan,
resulting in some unexpected romantic pairings.
The portrayal of the fairies differs a lot form other imaginings. If the 1935 version
showed the supernatural as ethereal creatures, caught up in magical and delicate dances
and rounds, Hoffmans visions features more earthly beings, reminding more of Greek and
Roman mythology, portrayed as satyrs and nymphs. The sound illustration of their partying
also resembles pagan music rather than fairytale atmosphere. The entry of the king and
queen of the fairies is elemental, accompanied by thunder, lightning and the shaking of the
ground, though all these can also be attributed to the storm going on both in the village and
the woods (this can also be translated as a reminder of the chaos caused by the conflict
between the rulers).
Shakespeare purists are always concerned about the cuts made by a director. With
his 1996 production of Hamlet, Kenneth Branagh showed that it is possible to conceive a
brilliant adaptation of the full text, but the result will have a long running time. Rather than
cutting entire scenes or removing a subplot, the director has taken the traditional approach
of shortening speeches by removing material. The result is surprisingly coherent, with only
one or two minor inconsistencies attributable to removed lines. Taking inspiration from
Branagh, Hoffman has assembled a mixed cast of well-known actors from both sides of the
Atlantic. There are several notable performances. One belongs to Kevin Kline, who brings
an element of pathos and regret to the buffoonery normally associated with Bottom.
Bottom isn't on hand just to provide comic relief, and Kline understands this. Rupert
Everett and Michelle Pfeiffer are suitably radiant as the fairy king and queen while the
versatile Stanley Tucci fashions Puck into a delightfully mischievous creature.
What is also very interesting is the fact that Hoffman's enchanted land relies more
on performances and atmosphere than on special effects. As Bottom, a human given as
ass's head, Kline merely wears a pair of donkey ears and grows a little extra fur on the face.
He is not turned into a computer-generated creation. Likewise, the forest itself is a

25
relatively simple place. It looks like a set, but that serves to amplify its magical, unearthly
quality rather than diminish it. Makeup and costume design are effective in creating a
variety of odd denizens, including a rather frightening- looking medusa.
The setting is full of colour and movement, in the village as well as in the forest.
The world created by the director and the team is entirely enjoyable, while the music
induces a dream-like or hypnotic feeling to the audience. While set design and atmosphere
are critical to Hoffman's vision of the play (and represent the primary cues by which this
version can be differentiated from its predecessors), Shakespeare's text still lies at the
movie's heart. In a fantasy setting such as this, the flowery language works exceptionally
well. The famous lines are all there: "The course of true love never did run smooth", "Lord,
what fools these mortals be", "It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream", and others. The
Bard's flair for comedy comes across clearly, emphasized by some of Hoffman's visual
contributions, including Hermia and Helena's mud wrestling and various characters'
bicycle misadventures.
If putting together visual representations of Shakespeares plays demands certain
conditions, both financial and technical, adapting the plays for television may not be as
similar, as the directors and teams have to do with different requirements, as well as some
limitations. We shall discuss the implications of this type of adaptation, television
Shakespeare, as well as analyse the 1981 BBC production of William Shakespeares A
Midsummer Nights Dream. The film is part of the BBC series which broadcast thirty-
seven plays between3 December 1978 and 27 April 1985.
Like all the other screenings, the film is subject to the conventions of the medium in
that, as John Ellis6 explains, instead of single, coherent text that is found in the cinema or
theatre broadcast TV offers relatively discrete segments: small sequential unities of
images and sounds... organised into groups, which are either simply cumulative, like news
broadcast items and advertisements, or have some kind of repetitive or sequential
connection, like the groups of segments that make up the serial or series. These
conventions also derive from the conditions under which programmes are made and
viewing takes place. The use of multiple cameras and cross-cutting in studio time creates a
sense of real time. Viewing is assumed to be casual and domestic.
Moreover, the final product is also influenced by the techniques and the vision of
the film director. In this case, Elijah Moshinsky enunciated his principles from the very
beginning: People think the plays should speak for themselves!... Plays dont speak for
themselves you interpret them by casting, by editing, by designing. They need

26
interpretation... 7 For Moshinsky interpretation also means editing and shortening and
even restructuring parts of the play, which he actually did with some of his adaptations,
like Coriolanus. However, in the case of the Dream the director remained exceptionally
faithful to the original text. His approach to translating Shakespeare to television was
represented by the pictorial solution, which implies using paintings as source material not
only for setting and costumes but also for he general organization of space in the studio
and consequently on the screen. For instance, Titania in her bower beautifully suggests
Rembrandts Danaes Bower and even the spectator who cannot grasp the allusion will
definitely enjoy the picture. But Michele Willems 8 suggests that there might be a problem
with this approach in the sense that the abundance of visual signs could interfere with the
reception of the text and states that some of the magnificent pictures actually seem to use
text as a pretext and not the other way round.
As far as music is concerned, the film features beautiful background music, in
keeping with the atmosphere created by the pictures, as well as beautiful and realistic
sound effects: bird-songs, evocative of the forest, sounds of water as the lovers wade of
splash, neighing when Oberon comes in riding his horse. All these realistic sounds blend in
with the words which the actors often speak together. The use of overlapping dialogue
confirms the priority given to realism at the expense of the text. Thus, it is understandable
that lovers quarrelling or artisans planning a theatrical performance should speak together
or even shout in order to make themselves understood, but the result is less likely to be
understandable for the public than in a theatrical performance which puts text above all
else.
Therefore, it is not at all surprising that Moon, while chanting his part in the hall,
where the celebration takes place, has little opportunity of making the most of his text, and
that Bottoms part at Ninnys tomb should be enjoyed mostly by the same Moon instead of
the diners or the viewers. The play within the play seems to present the same difficulties
for this pictorial production as to more naturalistic ones.
Mojinskys directorial style mostly involves keeping actors and camera relatively
still and providing movement through montage. He also favours the close shot, thus
allowing for more expressive modes of performance such as Helen Mirren (Titania).

Notes

27
1. Davies, Anthony - Shakespeare and the Moving Image, Cambridge University Press,
1994, p. 12
2. Holderness, Graham and Christopher McCullough Shakespeare on the Screen: A
Selective Filmography, in Shakespeare and the Moving Image, ed. by Anthony Davies
and Stanley Wells, CUP, 1994, p. 37-38
3. Tzvetan Todorov Introduction la Littrature Fantastique, Paris , 1970, p. 35
4. Russell Jackson Shakespeares Comedies on film in Shakespeare and the Moving Image,
ed. by Anthony Davies and Stanley Wells, p. 104
5. Russell Jackson Shakespeares Comedies on film in Shakespeare and the Moving Image,
ed. by Anthony Davies and Stanley Wells, p. 105
6. John Ellis Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video, London, 1982, p. 112
7. Neil Taylor Two types of Television Shakespeare in Shakespeare and the Moving Image,
ed. by Anthony Davies and Stanley Wells, p. 92
8. Michele Willems Reflections on the BBC Series in Shakespeare and the Moving Image,
ed. by Anthony Davies and Stanley Wells, p. 79

28
 Conclusion

We shall never know what William Shakespeare might have thought if he had ever
watched any of the many screenings of his creations. Nonetheless, we can imagine the
Bard viewing recreations of his life-long work and, nodding, or raging with fury at the
misinterpretation of his genial work. What is clear, however, is that most of
Shakespeares plays are endowed with an extraordinary versatility and richness of ideas,
that they have allowed numberless cinematographic adaptations since the dawn of the film
era to this day.
Amongst all the Shakespearian creations, A Midsummer Nights Dream stands out
as a result of its visual quality and the numberless opportunities it offers, allowing the
creation of visual metaphors and interpretations.
From the very beginning to the end, the play stands under the sign of the visual, the
fantastic and the dream. The creatures that populate it, ethereal fairies, mischievous goblins
(Puck) magnificent supernatural rulers (Oberon and Titania), mythical characters (Theseus
and Hippolyta) or grotesque beings (the unfortunate Bottom and his ass-head), along with
the mortals who enter the woods, all swirl together in an atmosphere governed by the moon
and its magical power.
The unique world created by William Shakespeare transcends both the limits of the
world of the Athenians (mortals) he depicts and the supernatural one of the fairies. It exists
in a world of myth, of art and never-ending creation, thus allowing for the creation, not of
lifeless copies, but of true and living new representations of it.
Along the time it has became intersected with numerous other arts and has been the
starting point of creations in different fields, including literature itself. We can therefore
mention works of fiction such as Henrik Ibsens St Johns Eve (1853), Botho Straus play
(Der Park) of 1983 or Raymond Feists Faerie Tale (1988) which, along with many others,
feature characters or influences form the play.
In music, though not the only composer who found inspiration in this play, Felix
Mendelssohn stands as the most famous. He wrote an overture for concert performance
starting from the Dream (1826) and later, even the incidental music for a theatrical

29
production, in which he incorporated the overture, as well as the famous Wedding March,
which has now become world-wide known and performed at many wedding ceremonies.
Ballet adaptations include Marius Petipas version and even the Disney Company
drew inspiration from the play in a Disney short, featuring Mickey and Minnie Mouse,
Donald and Daisy Duck as the four lovers to the enjoyment of children of all ages. The
painters who visually depicted scenes inspired form the play are so numerous that it would
be very difficult to mention all of them. However, we shall mention a few, only to give a
taste of the enormous body of works of art that the play inspired: Washington Aliston,
Joseph Noel Paton, Henry Fuseli, Joshua Reynolds, Edwin Landseer and many others.
If the play inspired so many other arts, it is understandable that, with the
establishing of cinema as an art in its own right, many cinematographers have been drawn
to its beauty and desired to translate it to its own medium.
Some film-makers merely used elements form the play, like characters or pieces of
the plot, but many others aspired to much more and adapted the Dream for the big screen
or television.
That they have done it for their own ego or in an attempt to give credit to the studio
of production, for attracting a different layer of the public (like theatre-goers), or simply
for the sake of art and the desire to bring the world of Shakespeare to the modern audience,
it is difficult, if not virtually impossible to say. All we can do, as audience and art-lovers is
to enjoy these adaptations and remember that, in a way, Shakespeare is still among us.

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 Bibliography

Primary Bibliography

Shakespeare, William A Midsummer Nights Dream, Penguin Books, 1994

Secondary Bibliography

A Companion to Film Theory ed. By Toby Miller and Robert Stam, Blackwell
Publishing, 2004

Balazs, Bela Theory of the Film, London, Dennis Dobson Ltd.

Blamires, Harry A Short History of English Literature, Methuen and Co, London, 1974

Carter, Ronald and McRae, John The Routledge History of Literature in English
Britain and Ireland, Routledge, 2002

Currie, Gregory Image and Mind: Film, Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Cambridge,
CUP, 1995

Ellis, John Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video London, 1982

Film Theory and Criticism , ed. By Gerald Mast, Marshall Cohen and Leo Braudy, Oxford
University Press, 1992

Legoius, Emile and Cazamian, Louis A History of English Literature, JM Dent and Sons,
New York, 1971

Plantinga, Carl Film Theory and Aesthetics in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,
vol 51, nr 3, 1993

Sanders, Andrew The Short Oxford History of English Literature, Oxford University
Press, 2000

Shakespeare and the Moving Image- the Plays on film and television ed. By Anthony
Davies and Stanley Wells, Cambridge University Press, 1994

Sontag, Susan Film and Theatre in Film Theory and Criticism, ed. By Gerald Mast,
Marshall Cohen and Leo Braudy, Oxford University Press, 1992

Stam, Robert Film Theory An Introduction, Blackwell Publishing, 2000

31
The Arden Shakespeare: A Midsummer Nights Dream- ed. By Harold F. Brooks, London
and New York, Methuen,1979

Todorov, Tzvetan Introduction la Littrature Fantastique, Paris , 1970

Filmography

A Midsummer Nights Dream 1935, Warner Brothers Studios, Directed by Max Reinhardt
A Midsummer Nights Dream 1981, British Broadcasting Corporation, Dircted by Elijah
Moshinsky
A Midsummer Nights Dream 1999, Fox Studios, Directed by Michael Hoffman

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