Rationale
After teaching English literature to high school students for ten years I have realized that film adaptations of literature can make an incredible difference to a student's basic comprehension of literature and aid in his/her analysis. However, I also realize that adaptations create a specific interpretation of a text. The students come to see this adaptation as the definitive interpretation of a piece of writing. This effect of film on my students is alternately aggravating and invigorating. There is power in film. Film can move and sway an audience, especially modern ones, to believe or see certain things in ways that can not be duplicated by a printed text. The problem I have had is in helping students see that a director is doing the same thing as a reader of a text. The director is interpreting the text and transforming that text into a visual form. Students do this naturally. They have been programmed by modern society to think in pictures and sound bites. They are bombarded by sensory stimuli. I have noticed that students discuss literature in visual terms, and they respond to visual writers like Steinbeck and cinematic writers like Hemingway vigorously. Therefore, I see the need for a unit that engages students while teaching them that film is a powerful interpretive tool, one that offers an interpretation, but not necessarily a definitive one.
With these things in mind I decided to create a unit which uses various interpretations of William Shakepeare's Hamlet to initiate the students into film analysis as well as aid their analysis of a staged text. Specifically this unit asks students to examine clips from Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet (1964), Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990), and Michael Almereyda's Hamlet (2000). These directors have adapted Shakespeare's work in three distinctly different ways that allow for a myriad of discussion opportunities, but my unit will focus our analysis on the opening scenes of the films and the portrayal of Ophelia and Gertrude within the films. Each director creates a unique vision of the play, and the actresses have different approaches to the characters. I believe discussion of the adaptations will lead to interesting interpretations of the text as well as a new found way to examine film and Shakespeare.
My unit will first examine the opening scenes of the movies. The opening scene of a movie is incredibly important to understanding the rest of the film. It is through the opening scene that the director shares his/her vision and gives us the keys to unlock the rest of the film. Therefore, it will be important for the students to view and discuss these opening scenes in order to properly analyze Gertrude and Ophelia in the play. In addition, William Shakespeare wrote a very powerful opening scene that sets up the mood and theme of the entire play. However, Kozintsev, Zeffirelli, and Almereyda all chose to reject the opening scene by Shakespeare and create an entirely new scene. This raises interesting questions about adaptation and ownership. Therefore it will be vital for us to examine the opening scenes to truly understand what the directors are trying to do with their version of Hamlet.
Female characters in William Shakespeare's plays are fascinating. Although the plays are dominated by male protagonists, the female ones seem to create more discussion in a classroom. My AP English class is made up of mostly female students, and I like to find ways to engage them in the male dominated literature of the course. We read very few works by women writers, and most of the protagonists in the pieces we read are male. Focusing on Ophelia and Gertrude may encourage alternative analysis of the play and a different approach to viewing the films. Furthermore, after viewing many versions of Hamlet I became intrigued by the different portrayals of Ophelia and Gertrude. So one of the things I hope to do with my students is have them focus on the effect of these women on the film, beginning with the opening sequence of the movie.
Finally, this unit is designed for my AP English Literature course. While the AP literature course does not require that students have knowledge of film analysis, I have found that most of the pieces within the curriculum have movie counterparts. The students enjoy viewing clips of these movies, and these viewings generally spark much discussion. However, as an English teacher I have never felt confident in my ability to teach film analysis properly. When the opportunity arose to take a seminar with Dudley Andrew at Yale University on adapting literature to film I thought it would be the perfect way to gain knowledge about film analysis. The way one examines and identifies motifs, themes, setting, characterization etc. in films is similar to the actions one goes through to analyze a piece of literature. While I almost always prefer a written text to its film counterpart, I feel that it is necessary to educate myself and my students about film adaptations. Whether I like it or not, film adaptations exist. Students also love watching movies. Therefore, I want to create a unit that utilizes film adaptations effectively.
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