Author: Edel Semple
Peer-Reviewers: Kathryn McClain and James Fleury
Website Developer: Kristen Figgins

Review a Shakespeare Adaptation

Course: “Shakespeare on Screen” Seminar 

Summary: This assignment is from a semester-long, small-group seminar on “Shakespeare on Screen.” The syllabus covers four Shakespeare plays and two or three film adaptations of each play. Each week, the students prepare for class by re/reading that week’s play, watching the film, and responding to critical material on the film. 

The Empire review assignment occurs late in the semester when students are comfortable with the material and relevant critical theories. As a popular film magazine, with a podcast and a website, Empire is generally accessible to students. In preparation for this assignment, I set an in-class exercise where the students read Empire reviews of Shakespeare films (available online), and then evaluate in pairs the tone, style, conventions, and aims of the reviews. Students observe that Empire’s reviews are typically witty, engaging, informal, and informative. Students identify that the reviews consider important details – such as casting, performances, genre, director, and cinematography – and often situate a film in relation to the director/cast’s previous work as well as other films and popular media. 

As the Empire review assignment is short and ‘low stakes’ (it is worth only a small amount of credit), students tend to have fun with it. The assignment has been quite successful in engaging students as it affords them the chance to be creative and practice a variety of writing skills such as summarising, brevity, accuracy, and persuasion. The review assignment is also successful because it enables students to take ownership of the course material, to realise that their original views matter, and to show something of their personalities and interests in their writing. Over the years, students have chosen to review a wide range of Shakespeare adaptations, such as romcoms like Anyone But You (Will Gluck, 2023), musicals like West Side Story (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, 1961; Steven Spielberg, 2021), epics like Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985), teen movies like O (Tim Blake Nelson, 2001) and 10 Things I Hate About You (Gil Junger, 1999), and more direct adaptations like The Tragedy of Macbeth (Joel Coen, 2021). 

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Instructions Provided to Students: Review a Shakespeare Adaptation 

2023 will see worldwide celebrations to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the printing of Shakespeare’s First Folio. To mark this occasion, the British film magazine Empire is preparing a special issue dedicated to Shakespeare on film. Empire’s editor has asked you to write a review of one Shakespeare film produced after 1900 to be included in this special issue.  

Guidelines 

This exercise requires you to think as a film critic and to write for a popular audience. Your goal is to engage film fans, rather than present an analysis to an expert audience of Shakespeare scholars. You should aim to master the style and tone of an Empire review, while also following this assignment’s format (outlined below). Your review should approach the film from the standpoint of a film critic in 2023. Empire reviews of Shakespeare films are available on the magazine’s website. You may review any Shakespeare film, but your editor recommends choosing a film that interests you. Your entire review must be 500 words or less. 

Format for Empire reviews: 

Your review must have the following components and headings/sections: 

• Plot: Summarised in one sentence. 
• Review: An engaging review of the film aimed at a general audience. 
• Verdict: Your overall judgement of the film in one sentence. 

Stars: Star rating out of 5 ★. 

Author Bio

Edel Semple is Senior Lecturer in Shakespeare Studies in the Department of English, University College Cork, Ireland. She teaches classes of 15-350 students across the BA Arts, BA in English, and MA English programmes. Her teaching is research-led and focuses on women in early modern drama, gender in Shakespeare adaptations on film and TV, and Shakespearean biofiction. In 2022, she won a UCC President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching for her work promoting learning through the use of Problem Based Learning (PBL) in the BA in English curriculum. Edel is a passionate teacher, seizing opportunities to teach abroad (e.g. through the EU’s Erasmus+ Programme) and to develop her skills through further training.

About the Adaptation Today Pedagogy Series

Adaptation Today is a free, accessible resource for all academics and students who are interested in adaptation, especially graduate students, contingent scholars, and early career researchers. The pedagogy series creates a space of community and resource-sharing, with rolling deadlines for submission. See our CFP page to see how you can submit your own syllabi, lesson plans, assessments, and blog posts for publication.