Introduction : from stage to screen -- Part one. Film language. Silent ghosts, speaking ghosts : movies about movies -- Méliès and the pioneers -- Part two. Shakespeare films. "Stay, illusion" -- Supernatural comedies : A midsummer night's dream and The tempest -- "The most unfortunate major film ever produced" : Shakespeare and the talkies -- Ghosts and courts : the openings of Hamlet -- Macbeth and the supernatural -- Conclusion. A new hybrid : Taymor's dream.
Summary
In Shakespeare the Illusionist, Neil Forsyth reviews the history of Shakespeare's plays on film, assessing what filmmakers and TV directors have made of the spells, haunts, and apparitions-- Puck and the fairies, ghosts and witches, or Prospero's island--in his plays. A bold step forward in Shakespeare and film studies.