'Hamlet' and World Cinema

Mark Thornton Burnett

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781107135505
• eBook ISBN: 9781108638470
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

'Hamlet' and World Cinema reveals a rich history of cinematic production extending across the globe. Making a case for Hamlet as the world's most frequently filmed text, and using specially commissioned interviews with cast, directors and screenwriters, it discusses films from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. The book argues that the play has been taken up by filmmakers world-wide to allegorise the energies, instabilities, traumas and expectations that have defined the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In so doing, it rejects the Anglophone focus which has dominated criticism up to now and explores instead the multiple constituencies that have claimed Shakespeare's most celebrated work as their own. 'Hamlet' and World Cinema uncovers a vital part of the adaptation story. This book facilitates a fresh understanding of Shakespeare's cinematic significance and newly highlights Hamlet's political and aesthetic instrumentality in a vast range of local and global contexts.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• A Note on Texts and Titles
• Introduction
• Chapter One Hamlet, Cinema and the Histories of Western Europe
• Chapter Two Thematizing Place: Hamlet, Cinema and Africa
• Chapter Three Hamlet and the Moment of Brazilian Cinema
• Chapter Four Pairing the Cinematic Prince: Hamlet, China and Japan
• Chapter Five Hamlet and Indian Cinemas: Regional Paradigms
• Chapter Six Gendering Borders: Hamlet and the Cinemas of Turkey and Iran
• Chapter Seven Materializing Hamlet in the Cinemas of Russia, Central and Eastern Europe
• Filmography
• Bibliography
• Index