Kevin Kline Movies

What Are the Greatest Shakespeare Movies?

Much Ado is fantastically fun, my wife’s favorite.

In my mind, Ran surely the best of the dramas, and so well done you barely need the subtitles to follow it. Henry V very very close, and wouldn’t quibble with anyone who put it at the top.

My sentimental favorite is Twelfth Night, my teen daughter’s favorite–and only Shakespeare movie she has ever had the patience to watch all the way through. And more than once. At #19, it’s a bit underrated.

I also need to see Richard III.

Any list that includes McKellen’s meretricious Richard III and excludes the stupendous, grotesque Olivier version is already flawed.

However, the list excludes one of the potentially greatest of all Shakespeare films, Orson Welles’ “Chimes at Midnight” (1958), featuring Welles, Jeanne Moreau, Gielgud, Margaret Rutherford; and taken from plays featuring Falstaff, mainly Henry IV and Henry V. The scene of the death of Falstaff is probably the most moving ever filmed.

I’d give the laurel to Branagh’s Henry V, too.

Much Ado did very well, even with the re-arranging (since re-arranging is, well, traditional). It’s worth watching just for Michael Keaton’s performance alone.

Count me as one who prefers Mel Gibson’s Hamlet over Branagh’s: I am not a Gibson fan, and I am a Branagh fan, but Zeferrelli’s version is much better than I expected. Much.

But I would distinguish between movies that are “inspired by” versus movies that are very predominately in the words of Shakespeare’s text. There’s a huge difference.

What’s more interesting to contemplate is which Shakespeare plays have NOT been well-captured on film. And why (not).

Branagh’s Henry first and Olivier’s ninth?

I’d take Tower of London, with Rathbone as Richard III, Vincent Price as the Duke of Clarence, and Karloff’s Mord the executioner (now how could Shakespeare have forgotten him?) over any number of these–but not, of course, over Olivier’s Richard, with Ralph Richardson’s magnificent Buckingham.

I like Branagh’s work very much, and am grateful to him for making Shakespeare palatable to modern audiences, but I don’t know if I agree to ranking him above Kurosawa. His subtlety, cinematography, and his interpretations of the characters make him (overall) the superior artist in Shakespearean cinema. Granted, Kurosawa has only done two, and Branagh’s done at least four (and done them very well) – but where his representations were more flamboyant (Hamlet, Benedick, etc.), Kurosawa’s were more refined and sympathetic.

Queen to Play 2009 LIMITED DVDRip XviD-NODLABS-aXXo - aXXo Movies

, A French Drama movie starring Sandrine Bonnaire, Kevin Kline and Valérie Lagrange, directed by Caroline Bottaro.Sandrine Bonnaire and Kevin Kline shine in this sophisticated feel-good comedy set in idyllic Corsica. Middle-aged chambermaid Hélène’s newfound obsession with the game of chess leads her to seek the tutelage of a reclusive American expat, transforming both of their ho-hum lives in the process.

Plot: Kevin Kline (“A Fish Called Wanda”) and the luminous Sandrine Bonnaire (“Vagabond”) square off in this stylish and sophisticated drama of newly discovered passions and midlife triumphs, set on the idyllic isle of Corsica. Alluring, repressed and quietly intelligent, French Riviera chambermaid Hélène (Bonnaire) discovers she has an uncanny talent for chess. This obsession — much to the resentment of her husband and teenaged daughter — draws her to seek the clandestine tutelage of a gruff and reclusive American doctor, played by Kline in a meticulously observed performance and in his first entirely French-speaking role. The unlikely liaison radically transforms both of their colorless lives. In her directorial debut, Caroline Bottaro presents an emotionally sublime film, adapted from Bertina Henrichs’ novel “The Chess Player,” reminding us that it is not how we start out but rather how we finish the game that is most important.

Pro SQL Server 2008 Relational Database Design and Implementation

Pro SQL Server 2005 Database Design and Optimization

Shoptalk, Conversations About Theater and Film With Twelve Writers, One Producer-And Tennessee Williams' Mother

New York Magazine

New York Magazine