Shakespeare on Silent Film
An Excellent Dumb Discourse

This book tells the story of the many Shakespeare films made in the silent era, analysing a wide selection in detail.

Judith Buchanan (Author)

9780521871990, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 May 2009

340 pages
23.4 x 15.7 x 2.1 cm, 0.68 kg

Review of the hardback: 'Judith Buchanan's excellent book reconnects us with a lost world of Shakespearean performance. Through detailed, wide-ranging research and a high degree of imaginative sympathy she makes an unshakeable case for the validity and thematic richness of the silent Shakespeare film. It is instantly the standard work on its subject.' Luke McKernan, Curator of the Moving Image at the British Library

Several hundred films based on Shakespearean material were made in cinema's 'silent' era. What economic and cultural ambitions combined in order to make Shakespeare such attractive source material for the film industry? What were the characteristic approaches of particular production companies and of particular national film industries? How were silent Shakespeare films marketed, distributed, exhibited and received? Through a series of close readings, and drawing upon a wealth of primary research, this engaging account tells an evolving story that both illuminates silent Shakespeare films already known, and brings into critical circulation other films not yet commercially available and therefore little known. Subjects covered include nineteenth-century precursors of silent Shakespeare films, the many Shakespeare films of the Vitagraph Company of America, the blockbuster Shakespeare films of the tercentenary year 1916, Asta Nielsen and Emil Jannings as the stars of German Shakespeare films of the 1920s, and silent films of Hamlet.

Preface
Introduction: wresting an alphabet
1. Shakespeare without words: the nineteenth-century legacy
2. Biograph's pioneering film of King John (1899)
3. Conflicted allegiances in Shakespeare films of the transitional era
4. Corporate authorship: the Shakespeare films of the Vitagraph Company of America
5. Pedigree and performance codes in silent films of Hamlet
6. Shakespeare films of the 1916 tercentenary
7. Asta Nielsen and Emil Jannings: stars of German Shakespeare films of the early 1920s
8. Afterword: 'No tongue, all eyes! Be silent': performing wordless Shakespeare today
Filmography: A. Commercially available Shakespeare films of the silent era
B. General filmography
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Shakespeare studies & criticism [DSGS], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Literary studies: general [DSB], Film, TV & radio [AP]