Reprinted from Green Man Review.
Apocalyptic Shakespeare is a collection of academic essays which examine apocalyptic images and themes within recent film adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. Despite the fact that most of the essays are written in a dry prose style densely crowded with academic language, it’s a fascinating topic which illuminates the often overlooked — and frequently edited — dark thread running through all of Shakespeare’s works, even his romantic sonnets and fantastic comedies.
Apocalyptic Shakespeare focuses upon Shakespeare films dating from the late twentieth century and post-9/11. Despite being a Shakespeare fan and having seen many of the more mainstream of these films, I was surprised at how many I had not previously heard of. The more familiar titles examined include Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996), Jean-Luc Godard’s King Lear (1987), The Postman (dir. Kevin Costner, 1997), Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet (2000), Julia Taymor’s Titus (2000), and Michael Radford’s The Merchant of Venice (2004). Some of the more obscure films discussed are She’s the Man (2006), Miroslaw Rogala’s Macbeth: The Witches’ Scenes (1988), The Street King (2002), Kristian Levring’s The King Is Alive (2000), Adrian Noble’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1996), Christine Edzard’s The Children’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (2001), and The Angelic Conversation (dir. Derek Jarman, 1985). In addition, other apocalypse-themed works which illuminate these films are also examined, such as Alex Cox’s Revengers Tragedy (2002) and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ (2004).
The lengthy twenty-plus page introduction by co-editor Melissa Croteau provides a useful discussion of various definitions and key texts of apocalyptic narratives and a brief discussion of the postmodern as it applies to the films discussed in the collection. The introduction is sprinkled with numerous mentions of science fiction narratives such as the Mad Max series, the Terminator series, and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Disappointingly, however, possibly due to their positioning within the spheres of the academic and/or avant-garde, the rest of the essays in the collection fail to pick up on the link between apocalyptic texts and science fiction, or even the overall commercial and critical success of apocalyptic narratives within the larger context of contemporary popular culture.
On the other hand, perhaps it is because of this lack of focus upon the technological disasters and science-run-amok which feature so prominently within science fiction dystopian narratives — not one of my favorite subgenres — that the collection as a whole is often more wide-ranging and eclectic than I had anticipated. Still more surprisingly, the essays are not entirely preoccupied with individual and global self-destruction, but instead often provide a subversive interpretation of the texts under discussion. Yes, there is the repeated themes of personal communication breaking down in the face of technological proliferation, the disruption of social and temporal order, the preoccupation with the notion of an ill world. Yet, as one scholar after another reminds us, apocalyptic narratives are not just about the end of the world, but about the world which comes after, and thus “The most salient feature of the apocalyptic is transformation” (Introduction, p. 2):
It is important, however, to explore the revelatory, utopic side of apocalyptic. Indeed, traditional apocalyptic texts are as much about salvation and renewal, the birth of new worlds, as they are about destruction and judgment . . . “The cataclysm of apocalypse takes place for a purpose, to unveil what is hidden or cannot be acknowledged in histories of every scale, from personal to global.” (pp. 13-4)
The anthology’s editors provide three of the most clearly-written and eloquent essays. These three essays were Melissa Croteau’s previously mentioned introduction and her examination of technology and media images in Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet (2000), along with Carolyn Jess-Cooke’s closing essay, “‘The Promised End’ of Cinema: Portraits of Apocalypse in Post-Millennial Shakespearean Film.” Although the essay possesses a scientific rather than science fiction basis, Courtney Lehmann’s essay can be used to link apocalyptic narratives with science fiction themes. Lehman applies cybernetics theory and the idea of the posthuman to her exploration of the ways in which children have been linked to “Renaissance power plays” in three films: Adrian Noble’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1996), Julia Taymor’s Titus (2000), and Christine Edzard’s The Children’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (2001).
In an essay which I found particularly fascinating, Carl James Grindley discusses “The Plague in Filmed Versions of Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night,” while examining themes and even particular lines which are often dropped from productions due to the problematical aspects of including apocalyptic imagery in plays which are supposed to be, respectively, romantic and comedic.
Other standout essays include “Liberty’s Taken, or How ‘captive women may be cleansed and used’: Julie Taymor’s Titus and 9/11″ by Kim Fedderson and J. Michael Richardson, “Post-Apocalyptic Spaces in Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet” by Richard Vela, and “The Revenger’s Tragedy in 2002: Alex Cox’s Punk Apocalypse” by Gretchen E. Minton. “The Politics of Apocalypse: Interrogating Conversion in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and Michael Radford’s The Merchant of Venice” by Adrian Streete, which examines the anti-Semitic themes running through these recent films, while In “Disney’s ‘War Efforts’: The Lion King and Education for Death; or, Shakespeare Made Easy for Your Apocalyptic Convenience” by Alfredo Michel Modenessi, the author examines Disney’s process of appropriation in aligning The Lion King with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in addition to uncovering some of the disturbingly racist depictions of ethnic minorities included in the film.
Apocalyptic Shakespeare is an important work in both the study of Shakespeare films and in apocalyptic themes in contemporary culture. It should be included in any collection which focuses upon Shakespeare films, apocalyptic narratives, and transmedia, or the ways in which canon texts are translated across media. Due to its dense theoretical language and academic jargon, it will probably be a dry read for the general reader, but the dedicated Shakespeare fan may consider it a worthwhile investment of time and money.
(McFarland & Co., 2009)
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