By Shandelle Battersby
Hollywood's fascination with the Bard is far from over, says Shakespeare scholar Diana Harris.
She will discuss the renewed interest in Shakespeare's plays at a conference in Spain this month, coinciding with the New Zealand release of yet another adaptation, Michael Hoffman's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Recent screen versions of Shakespeare's plays, by Kenneth Branagh and Baz Luhrmann in particular, have been so successful that Harris, a lecturer at the University of Auckland, is certain there will be many more.
"We haven't exhausted the repertoire yet," she says. "There are things that people are always interested in revisiting or doing some other way."
Harris believes the attraction for Hollywood lies in making a financially successful film that is perceived to be high art.
"It's a matching of people who are interested in drama and performance with the commercial interests of making popular movies," she says. "Branagh has been incredibly instrumental."
Harris, who completes her PhD on "Shakespeare on screen" this year, uses the films in her teaching.
The paper she will deliver in Spain deals with the music in Luhrmann's 1996 version of Romeo and Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, and examines what messages the music delivers and how it supports overall interpretation.
The role of music in films has not been extensively studied from a literary viewpoint, Harris says.
"We've been going to see films for a long time without really registering the significance that music - either background or performed within the story - adds to our reception of the film."
The conference, which will be attended by both academics and film industry representatives, marks the centenary of the first appearance on film of a Shakespeare work - a tiny segment of King John, made by Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree in 1899.
The bard: high art and profits
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