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Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations PDF

165 Pages·2009·0.6 MB·English
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SHAKESPEARE, Film • Instrumental Music L E O In Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations, Kendra Preston N A Leonard examines the use of music in Shakespeare’s three political tragedies—Hamlet, R MADNESS, D Macbeth, and King Lear. These three plays all involve the recurring trope of madness, which, as constructed by Shakespeare, provided a wider canvas on which to convey details that could not be otherwise expressed: sexual desire and expectation, political MUSIC AND unrest, and ultimately, truth. Music has long been associated with madness and was often used as an audible symptom of victims’ disassociation from their surroundings and societal rules, as well as a loss of S H self-control. Whether discussing contemporary source materials, such as songs, verses, A or rhymes specified by Shakespeare in his plays, or music composed specifically for a K E film, Leonard illustrates how the changing social and scholarly attitudes toward the SCORING INSANITY IN CINEMATIC ADAPTATIONS S P plays, characters, and conditions that fall under the general catch-all of “madness” have E A led to a wide range of musical accompaniments, signifiers, and incarnations of the afflic- R tions displayed by Shakespeare’s characters. E , M Focusing on the most widely distributed and viewed adaptations of these plays for the A D cinema, each chapter presents the musical treatment of individual Shakespearean char- N acters afflicted with, or feigning, madness: Hamlet, Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, King Lear, E S and Edgar. The book offers analysis and interpretation of the music used to underscore, S , belie, or otherwise inform or invoke the characters’ state of mind, providing a fascinating A N indication of culture and society, as well as the thoughts and ideas of individual direc- D tors, composers, and actors. A bibliography, index, and appendix of Shakespeare’s film M adaptations complete this fascinating volume. U S I C KENDRA PRESTON LEONARD is the author of The Conservatoire Américain: A History (Scarecrow Press, 2007). For orders and information please contact the publisher Scarecrow Press, Inc. 90000 A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 9 780810 869462 Kendra Preston Leonard 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 Cover photo: Jean Simmons as 1-800-462-6420 • fax 717-794-3803 Ophelia in Hamlet (1948), directed by www.scarecrowpress.com Laurence Olivier. Author's collection. SShhaakkeessppeeaarreeMMaaddnneessssMMuussiiccPPBBKK..iinndddd 11 66//2299//0099 44::5599::4411 PPMM Shakespeare, Madness, and Music Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations Kendra Preston Leonard THE SCARECROW PRESS, INC. Lanham • Toronto • Plymouth,UK 2009 Published by Scarecrow Press,Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group,Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard,Suite 200,Lanham,Maryland 20706 http://www.scarecrowpress.com Estover Road,Plymouth PL6 7PY,United Kingdom Copyright © 2009 by Kendra Preston Leonard All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher,except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Leonard,Kendra Preston. Shakespeare,madness,and music :scoring insanity in cinematic adaptations,2009. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8108-6946-2 (pbk.:alk.paper) — ISBN 978-0-8108-6958-5 (ebook) 1. Shakespeare,William,1564–1616—Film and video adaptations.2. Mental illness in motion pictures.3. Mental illness in literature. I.Title. ML80.S5.L43 2009 781.5'42—dc22 2009014208 (cid:2)™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America To Karl Rufener An ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken Contents Acknowledgments vii A Note on the Text ix 1 Shakespeare, Madness, and Music 1 2 Hamlet 7 3 Ophelia 35 4 Lady Macbeth 69 5 King Lear 97 6 Edgar 117 Afterword 127 Appendix A:Films Referred to in the Text 129 Appendix B:Selected Film Productions and Adaptations of Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth 131 Bibliography 139 Index 149 About the Author 153 v Acknowledgments T o those listed here, I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks: Byron Adams; Ruth Benander; Carol Brobeck; Linda Carmona; Amada Eu- banks Winkler; Jessie Fillerup; Donna Fournier and the staff of Swarthmore College’s Underhill Music Library; Eric Hung; Linda Hunt and the staff of Swarthmore College’s McCabe Library; Melissa Kramer and the staff of Bryn Mawr College’s Canaday Library; Karen and Winston Leonard; Jessie Ann Owens; Karin Pendle; Karl Rufener; the staff of Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library; and the members of the 2008 Folger Shakespeare Library Shakespeare on Screen in Theory and Practice Seminar: Thomas Cartelli, Annalisa Castaldo, Rebecca R. Chapman, Alexander C. Huang, Farrah B. Lehman, Michael Noschka, Katherine Rowe, Amy E. Scott-Douglass, Jonathan L. Sircy, and Kay H. Smith. I am also grateful to my editor at Scarecrow Press,Renée Camus,and the outstanding staff there. Research for this book was supported in part by the Folger Shakespeare Library. vii A Note on the Text U nless otherwise noted, all references to Shakespeare’s plays are from the Folger Shakespeare Library Edition, edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine (New York: Washington Square Press, 1992). All references to the plays are notated as Act,Scene,Line(s);thus,2.2.224 would be Act 2, Scene 2, Line 224. ix

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Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations examines the use of music in the three political tragedies of William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. Each chapter presents the musical treatment of individual characters afflicted with or feigning madness_Hamlet
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