March 2002 NOTES AND QUERIES
Robert Shaughnessy (ed.), Shakespeare on
Film. Pp. xi + 206 (New Casebooks). Basing-
stoke and London: Macmillan, 1998. Hard-
bound £37.50 (ISBN 0-333-72016±4);
paperbound £11.99 (0-333-72017-2).
READING Robert Shaughnessy's introduc-
tion to this collection is like stepping into a
time machine: the articles, essays, and extracts
span 1977 to 1996 and, having travelled with us
into the past, Shaughnessy offers a vision of his
Brave New World. He is right to situate the rise
of theory in the context of changes that took
place in higher education from the late 1960s
onwards and saw more students from working-
class families entering universities but could
have taken this further by examining the
impact of the proliferation of Arts courses
offered by polytechnics and colleges since the
1970s which attracted students with lower A
level grades who were unable to cope with a
traditional English degree. Together with the
interdisciplinary nature of these institutions
this has led to radical changes in the curric-
ulum. For supporters of this transformation
such as Shaughnessy `Shakespeare on film . . .
provide[s] the kind of bridge between high and
popular culture that, as well as appealing to the
new and expanded student constituency, might
also offer the means for the academic discipline
to revitalise itself'. He goes on to note that `the
other route, widely touted at the time, was via
theatrical performance' ± tart evidence that
class-warriors still dismiss theatre as a bour-
geois pursuit. Shaughnessy is against the con-
servative values with which he believes
Shakespeare's work `has been traditionally
associated' ± order, hierarchy, Christianity,
nationalism, militarism, compulsory hetero-
sexuality, and so on'. Filming Shakespeare
demands that the plays be adapted to the new
medium and provides opportunities for follow-
ing a left-wing agenda. Why this is impossible
in the theatre is not clear.
The collection begins with extracts from
pioneering books by Jack J. Jorgens and
Anthony Davies as `representative of the best
work that has been done within the traditional
critical paradigm' followed by eight studies
dominated by a cultural materialist perspect-
ive. Readers sceptical of the claims of Marx-
ism, feminism, and psychoanalysis will remain
139
unconvinced. Most of the essays hardly give
the impression of Shakespeare Studies revita-
lizing itself. The pieces by Holderness and
Collick are bog-standard Marxist accounts
both written before the collapse of the Soviet
Union; Barbara Hodgdon's piece on The Tam-
ing of the Shrew has some interesting things to
say about the stars of two film versions of the
play but her overall feminist thesis makes little
advance on Michael Bogdanov's 1978 produc-
tion for the Royal Shakespeare Company and
is marred by critical jargon. Curtis Breight
almost makes me feel sorry for Kenneth Bra-
nagh. Taking his cue from Brian Blessed's
ragging Branagh in rehearsal ± `You never
give Paul Scofield any fucking notes. You're
just a bloody arse-licker' ± Breight continues
`Branagh is an ``arse-licker'', but the ``arse'' in
question is not the regal Scofield's but Prince
Charles's'. While I welcome plain English this
is hardly the stuff of profound academic
enquiry.
Both Breight and Colin MacCabe substitute
assertion for argument. Peter Donaldson's in-
terpretation of Olivier's Hamlet is more con-
sidered but non-Freudians will find it
reductionistic. The pieces by Catherine Belsey
and Douglas Lanier are valuable but so chal-
lenging as to make one wonder who this series
is aimed at. Undergraduates should cope and
find the reprinted journal articles useful but
sixth-formers will need guidance which creates
undesirable teacher-dependency. Both groups
may find the underlying premisses of the soi-
disant radical contributors badly dated. Aca-
demics who wouldn't dream of wearing flares
in the lecture theatre seem less inclined to
change their ideologies. This volume like an
old newsreel will show today's students the way
we were. The guilty parties should cringe: the
next generation should revitalize the revitali-
zers.
Stephen J. Phillips
Plymouth