Making Shakespeare Relevant : Hoffman 's A Midsummer Night 's Dream

Michael Hoffman’s 1999 film version of Shakespeare's midsummer night’s dream was able to modify the audience experience of the play. Michael Hoffman had successfully turned the play into a film and was able to show a visible expression of the characters to the audience. He had also made some changes, like the settings and made his version modernized. Though the film was based on the Shakespeare’s play, the audience’s experience is still different.

Expression is universal. The majority of all people can interpret exasperated sighs, wide eyes, loud voices, clapping, etc. Even when characters are not physically speaking, movies emit numerous messages through actor portrayal. Audiences visually experience characters’ physical reactions which are not included in books. The actors’ individual portrayals of characters in Michael Hoffman’s 1999 film, William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, enhance the extreme personalities of characters already established in William Shakespeare’s play.

Having considered the opposing side’s perspective, individuals should also recognize not only a filmmaker’s necessity to express their creative freedom but the factors which contribute to the limitations of adapting a book into a movie. Members of an audience often scrutinize an adapted film because of their initial bias and previous knowledge of the original work, without taking into consideration the possible factors which play a part in alterations of the original works. Prior to the adaptation of a film, there is a lengthy process a film must go through before its production. In these facets of adaptation the creator of a film must attempt to transform an author’s work into a physical and tangible vision for his audience. In screenwriter and script adviser Linda Seger’s book The Art of Adaptation, she explains the vital factors which film producers are subjected to when adapting literature. In her introduction and “Why literature Resists Film” chapters, Seger deals with recurring issues in adaptation such as timing constraints, commerciality of a film, plot clarification, and the elimination of key plot points and characters (1-13). Having an audience be aware of the limitations and factors which filmmakers face, makes them less liable to scrutinize a film or at least makes them aware of the existent hardships of adaptation and the reason behind potential alterations to the original work. As a result, of both genres’ unique process and struggles, some supporters of the film industry propose that both genres should be seen as independent from one another, and that criticism be set aside to respect each other's effort to create something of value. Researcher James M. Welsh, cinematography writer and author of the book, The Literature/Film Reader: Issues of Adaptation, agrees. However, in his book he also acknowledges that those opposed to a film’s creative freedom will

It would be an honor to carry out Shakespeare’s initial ideas to its full capacity, but I cannot fulfill this deed without the support from your company. With your money, cast, and audience; there is no doubt that anyone will exit the building without an enlightening experience.

Analyzing different works of literature is beneficial, especially since one can learn multiple life lessons. Personally, I enjoy analyzing and watching different film versions of plays. In addition, in high school and college, I was taught that a film version of a work of literature could never replace the text itself; however, I disagree, to a certain extent. Yes, reading the text is crucial, but a film version serves as a visual—this is helpful. When it comes to analyzing different plays, I enjoy watching film versions, especially since it helps me get a better understanding of the meaning of the text as a whole. In this writing prompt, I will compare and contrast the film version and text of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare.

The idea of civilization coupled with the use of theatrical elements within this play allow the reader to be able to comprehend the comparison between classic Shakespearean works that have been modified and recreated to meet the needs of today’s modern society. In other words, the plot and story line of many of Shakespeare’s plays have been

In this essay, I will be discussing two of Shakespeare’s plays, Richard II and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with particular reference to source material and genre expectation respectively. Both plays are interesting, with regards to their relationship with either the original source material for the play, or the expectations of the genre with which they are tied to. In the following paragraphs, I will be discussing A Midsummer Night’s Dream in relation to source material, The Story of Pyramus and Thisbe (from Ovid’s Metamorphoses) and Richard II in relation to expectations to the notion of tragedy. I believe that both of these plays will take heavy influence from the source material, or stick to genre conventions due to the audience expectations and the context in which Shakespeare was writing the plays in at the time.

Adaptation from one medium to another is a slippery slope that adapters have to be very cautious of. Any form of misrepresentation of the characters, scenery & plot can cause a film to plummet and receive harsh criticism. One can only ask how well adapters are without the guidance of the original author. Would William Shakespeare be satisfied with the many adaptations of his infamous play Romeo & Juliet? Or would Jane Austen be content with how well Keira Knightley portrayed the eccentricities of the main character Elizabeth Bennet? These are questions we must ask ourselves when depicting how well adaptors mimic the original context. One thing that comes into play are the visual texts and the alterations the adaptors make when trying to bring

"Overview: A Midsummer Night's Dream." Literature and Its Times: Profiles of 300 Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events that Influenced Them. Joyce Moss and George Wilson. Vol. 1: Ancient Times to the American and French Revolutions (Prehistory-1790s). Detroit: Gale, 1997. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21

In William Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" many symbols, imagery, allusions and dramatic irony are portrayed throughout the play. The collage helped to showcase the major idea's and connections to the play with the use of the dramatic elements.

Throughout the past century, it has been increasingly the case that authors and artisans utilize familiar stories and adapt them into a different medium. This practice of course, has been in place for many thousands of years, as we see the epic of Gilgamesh transcending its initial narrative to become more poetic, and weave itself into various mythologies, and Homers tales have long since made the rounds through all manner of works, whether narrative, paintings, plays or poetry. However, this practice has become more and more common as the number of mediums through which the story teller can communicate has increased, and so have the relative audiences. Film, in particular, has become especially subservient to the role of adaption, as many other films can be found have, in some way or another drawn adaption from one or more sources. This has led to an interesting state of affairs, in which conflicting or complimentary viewpoints can be espoused by the original author of the work, and the director and/or screenwriter of the film. Often, these viewpoints are close to in sequence, but even in the closest of manifestations, divergence from the original meaning can be found. I find this to be the case with ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ and its film adaption of the same name. For although consumers lauded the closes with which the film captured the essence of the written work, I believe core differences can be found. To that end, this paper will first begin by analyzing the

at a wedding and is the tragedy of two lovers that are forced to speak

From the very outset, it is worth noting that the article’s central theme is the practice of adaptation. Adaption is used in the article to describe the practice of transforming an already existing work of art to come up with a new form of art. In essence, adaptation involves developing a new work of art (such as a film) from an existing one (such as a novel or play). The new work of art is said to have transformed or adapted the original. As such, it is inevitably referred to a reproduction or adaptation of the original. In this sense, the focus of the article is on how different artistic and literary works have been transformed into films through adaptation.

From the very outset, it is worth noting that the article’s central theme is the practice of adaptation. Adaption is used in the article to describe the practice of transforming an already existing work of art to come up with a new form of art. In essence, adaptation involves developing a new work of art (such as a film) from an existing one (such as a novel or play). The new work of art is said to have transformed or adapted the original. As such, it is inevitably referred to a reproduction or adaptation of the original. In this sense, the focus of the article is on how different artistic and literary works have been transformed into films through adaptation.

For the past few decades the entertainment of people has drastically shifted from books to movies. A panoptic overview of this change, will confer a very strong view point that: books still remain ‘the centre of the entertainment’ and most of the best enjoyed books and stories are transformed to become movies. These movies then reach a wider audience carrying the same or modified spirit the story initially possessed. Therefore echoing the reality of John Berger’s statement even stories that are based on or adapted from books have their own Additions, Deletions and Variations when being transformed into a new Meta-linguistic system called ‘Films’.