Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic AdaptationsShakespeare's three political tragedies_Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear_have numerously been presented or adapted on film. These three plays all involve the recurring trope of madness, which, as constructed by Shakespeare, provided a wider canvas on which to detail those materials that could not be otherwise expressed: sexual desire and expectation, political unrest, and, ultimately, truth, as excavated by characters so afflicted. Music has long been associated with madness, and was often used as an audible symptom of a victim's disassociation from their surroundings and societal rules, as well as their loss of self-control. In Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations, Kendra Preston Leonard examines the use of music in Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. Whether discussing contemporary source materials, such as songs, verses, or rhymes specified by Shakespeare in his plays, or music composed specifically for a film and original to the director's or composer's interpretations, Leonard shows how the changing social and scholarly attitudes towards the plays, their characters, and the conditions that fall under the general catch-all of 'madness' have led to a wide range of musical accompaniments, signifiers, and incarnations of the afflictions displayed by Shakespeare's characters. Focusing on the most widely distributed and viewed adaptations of these plays for the cinema, each chapter presents the musical treatment of individual Shakespearean characters afflicted with or feigning madness: Hamlet, Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, King Lear, and Edgar. The book offers analysis and interpretation of the music used to underscore, belie, or otherwise inform or invoke the characters' states of mind, providing a fascinating indication of culture and society, as well as the thoughts and ideas of individual directors, composers, and actors. A bibliography, index, and appendix listing Shakespeare's film adaptations help complete this fascinating volume. |
Contents
1 | |
7 | |
Chapter 03 Ophelia | 35 |
Chapter 04 Lady Macbeth | 69 |
Chapter 05 King Lear | 97 |
Chapter 06 Edgar | 117 |
Afterword | 127 |
Films Referred to in the Text | 129 |
Selected Film Productions and Adaptations of Hamlet King Lear and Macbeth | 131 |
139 | |
149 | |
About the Author | 153 |
Other editions - View all
Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations Kendra Preston Leonard No preview available - 2009 |
Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations Kendra Preston Leonard No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
accompany actions actors adaptation Akira Kurosawa Almereyda appears Asaji audience aural Brook Cambridge camera Carol Thomas Neely celesta character cinematic Claudius composer create cues dance death diegetic distraction drama Duncan’s early modern Edgar Elsinore emotions Ethan Hawke figure film film’s final finally find first flowers flute Fool Gertrude Grigori Kozintsev Hamlet Hamlet TV Hamlet’s theme Hapgood heard Heinz Schall Hidetora indicate influenced Julia Stiles Kenneth Branagh King Lear Kliman Lady Macbeth Laertes Laurence Olivier Lear’s madness Mac’s Macbeth TV male melody Michael Michael Almereyda mind motif nondiegetic notes Olivier’s Ophelia Ophelia’s songs Ophelia’s theme orchestral Pat’s performance Perfs Peter Peter Brook Polanski Polonius Polonius’s production reflects role scene score sexual Shakespeare Shostakovich signified singing soliloquy sound specific speech stage storm Takemitsu Television Thomas Neely Throne ofBlood tion tonal traditional Tsurumaru’s University Press viewers visual vocality Walton Washizu Welles’s witches women words writes York Zeffirelli