Devin O'Brien
Bio
I'm an essayist, humorist, and film critic. Hope you enjoy my work!
Stories (2/0)
Is God a Playwright?
William Shakespeare famously writes in his play As You Like It that, “All the world’s a stage, and the men and women merely its players.” Tom Stoppard, playwright, director, and student of Shakespeare, explores the full potential of this ideology in the film adaptation of his play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. Tom Stoppard’s first and only film is an experimental tragicomedy that depicts the events of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet as experienced by the titular Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) and Guildenstern (Tim Roth), two minor characters sent for by the King to determine the cause of Prince Hamlet’s troubled disposition. Throughout the film the two heroes grapple with their predetermined fate and their seemingly meaningless existences as they encounter the unnatural forces of theatricality, forces that dictate reality as explained by the wit of The Lead Player (Richard Dreyfuss).
By Devin O'Brien7 years ago in Geeks
The Struggle to Adapt
The greatest pain in adapting a stage play to the screen is bridging the disconnect between the experience of a film viewer and a playgoer. Whereas the play is for the most part stationary in its setting, the film is fluid. Whereas the performance of a play is ever-changing with each performance, the film remains fixed in existence. These differences are felt most prominently in the adaptation of a Shakespearean work, as these plays were written at a time when the very concept of filmed performance was beyond the bounds of the imagination. They were written with the knowledge that the play could not be fully realized without the audience’s active suspension of disbelief. Film has neither that luxury nor burden, as modern filmmaking affords the audience with an abundance of details, ensuring their disbelief is not suspended to a point of distraction from the drama at hand. As such the Shakespearean film adaptation loses some of its originator’s charm, and in turn demands creative liberties to fill the gaps made in the act of adapting. A straightforward stage-to-screen adaptation is impossible (the word “impossible” here meaning “incapable of being good”), for the qualities of a play are far too dissonant from the qualities of a film, and therefore adaptation necessitates reimagination. This necessity can be best explored in Richard Loncraine’s 1995 film Richard III. Loncraine’s film adaptation takes incredible liberties with the source material, most namely in setting and music, while still adhering to the original text. In doing so, Loncraine more adeptly captures the original tone of Shakespeare’s play than could a film adaptation that strictly follows how the piece would have been performed at the time of its writing.
By Devin O'Brien7 years ago in Geeks