Douglas Brode
Autore di Shakespeare in the Movies: From the Silent Era to Today
Sull'Autore
Douglas Brode is a screenwriter, playwright, novelist, film historian, and multi-award winning journalist. He is the author of more than thirty books on film and the mass media.
Serie
Opere di Douglas Brode
Fantastic Planets, Forbidden Zones, and Lost Continents: The 100 Greatest Science-Fiction Films (2015) 8 copie
Dream West: Politics and Religion in Cowboy Movies (Jack and Doris Smothers Series in Texas History, Life, and Culture) (2013) 3 copie
Opere correlate
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1943
- Sesso
- male
- Luogo di nascita
- New York, USA
- Luogo di residenza
- San Antonio, Texas, USA
- Istruzione
- State University of New York, Geneseo
Syracuse University (B.S. / M.S. / Ph.D.) - Attività lavorative
- screenwriter
professor (of cinema studies) - Organizzazioni
- University of Texas at San Antonio (professor of cinema studies)
Utenti
Recensioni
Shakespeare in the Movies from the Silent Era to Today by Douglas Brode, 2001. Read in September 2010.
Inspired by the debate generated by Ruby’s Reflection on “Can You Do That to Shakespeare?” I decided to skip a book in my list in order to write about this one, which is all about what has been done to Shakespeare in the movies. Brode starts his book with two quotes: “Shakespeare would have made a great movie writer”, Orson Welles, stage and screen director. And: “Shakespeare is no screen writer,” Peter Hall, stage and screen director. Both of these men are considered Shakespeare movie giants. So how can they disagree so completely? Because we can’t agree on what can be done with Shakespeare. Exploring this debate, Brode’s introduction alone makes the book worth buying.
The rest is good too. In thirteen chapters he covers the history of the movies made on nineteen plays, for example The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, the history plays and others.
He discusses the different approaches, the problems, the successes. He makes bold statements with which I disagree, for example, “The Chimes at Midnight is the greatest of all Shakespeare film,” (it was very good but not the best in my opinion) and “The casting [of Elizabeth Bergner as Rosalind in As You Like It] was disastrous.” Actually I thought she was OK in a generally bad interpretation. He is also devastatingly negative to productions I haven’t seen, but that only makes me curious. He seems to agree, for example, with those who hated Peter Brook’s version of King Lear, inspired by Jan Kott’s book Shakespeare Our Contemporary. Brode writes: “Brook undermines Shakespeare and presents a world without decency, which is a far cry from Will’s vision.” Hmmm. Is it? Lear is a pretty bleak play. I so wish I could find this movie so I could judge for myself.
More often than not, though, I agree with Brode who clearly shares my love for Shakespeare and for movies. And I can forgive him almost anything for the following about Hamlet: “’There can never be a definite production of a play,” Time once noted, “about which no two people in the world agree.” That may be true; still, Branagh’s Hamlet comes close to delivering the definite film.”
However, we don’t read books just to reinforce our views, we read to broaden them and that is this book’s greatest value to me. It has stimulated my own approach to Shakespeare and inspired me to continue my ongoing search for more Shakespeare movies. They may not be endless but there are sure a lot of them and they keep coming. Lucky for us.
first posten on
http://rubyjandshakespearecalling.blogspot.com/… (altro)
Inspired by the debate generated by Ruby’s Reflection on “Can You Do That to Shakespeare?” I decided to skip a book in my list in order to write about this one, which is all about what has been done to Shakespeare in the movies. Brode starts his book with two quotes: “Shakespeare would have made a great movie writer”, Orson Welles, stage and screen director. And: “Shakespeare is no screen writer,” Peter Hall, stage and screen director. Both of these men are considered Shakespeare movie giants. So how can they disagree so completely? Because we can’t agree on what can be done with Shakespeare. Exploring this debate, Brode’s introduction alone makes the book worth buying.
The rest is good too. In thirteen chapters he covers the history of the movies made on nineteen plays, for example The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, the history plays and others.
He discusses the different approaches, the problems, the successes. He makes bold statements with which I disagree, for example, “The Chimes at Midnight is the greatest of all Shakespeare film,” (it was very good but not the best in my opinion) and “The casting [of Elizabeth Bergner as Rosalind in As You Like It] was disastrous.” Actually I thought she was OK in a generally bad interpretation. He is also devastatingly negative to productions I haven’t seen, but that only makes me curious. He seems to agree, for example, with those who hated Peter Brook’s version of King Lear, inspired by Jan Kott’s book Shakespeare Our Contemporary. Brode writes: “Brook undermines Shakespeare and presents a world without decency, which is a far cry from Will’s vision.” Hmmm. Is it? Lear is a pretty bleak play. I so wish I could find this movie so I could judge for myself.
More often than not, though, I agree with Brode who clearly shares my love for Shakespeare and for movies. And I can forgive him almost anything for the following about Hamlet: “’There can never be a definite production of a play,” Time once noted, “about which no two people in the world agree.” That may be true; still, Branagh’s Hamlet comes close to delivering the definite film.”
However, we don’t read books just to reinforce our views, we read to broaden them and that is this book’s greatest value to me. It has stimulated my own approach to Shakespeare and inspired me to continue my ongoing search for more Shakespeare movies. They may not be endless but there are sure a lot of them and they keep coming. Lucky for us.
first posten on
http://rubyjandshakespearecalling.blogspot.com/… (altro)
1 
rubyjand | Dec 3, 2012 |
rubyjand | Dec 3, 2012 | 
At least two and up to five classic B&W still photos from the most memorable 1960's films. Excellent synopses of 100 separate films with background information on the actors, stunts, and production. Introduction but no index. Included are: The Wild Bunch, West Side Story, The Birds, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, The Longest Day, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Hard Day's Night, and Dr. Strangelove.
How you rate this depends on what you want from such a book. If it's trivia to wow your compatriots with, it's probably a 5. If it's an understanding of how DeNiro created his characters, it's a 1. The discussion of his portrayal of Travis Bickle leads to no insight into that character,for instance.
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Statistiche
- Opere
- 47
- Opere correlate
- 1
- Utenti
- 531
- Popolarità
- #46,874
- Voto
- 3.4
- Recensioni
- 6
- ISBN
- 110
- Lingue
- 3
On October 2, 1959, Rod Serling introduced his seminal anthology TV series The Twilight Zone to an unsuspecting viewing public. Unlike the plethora of similar shows conceived in that era (Tales of Tomorrow, One Step Beyond, and several others), Serling’s blend of quality production and social awareness cemented the series firmly in the public consciousness. Frequently shown in reruns since its 1964 demise, The Twilight Zone long ago achieved iconic status, becoming part of the pop-culture zeitgeist. Our Lady of the Lake University professor Douglas Brode, along with Serling’s widow, Carol, offers a unique retrospective of the revered show in Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone: The Official 50th Anniversary Tribute (Barricade Books., $24.95).
“Carol [Serling:] agreed to talk more openly and honestly about Rod — warts and all — the great things about him, but his personal demons as well,” said Brode of the project’s beginnings. “I would take what she told me and apply them directly to the episodes and show how everything he believed was there.”
Using Carol Serling’s words as a framing device for each chapter, Brode reviews and analyzes some 80 of the show’s 156 episodes. Since several books, most notably [a:Marc Scott Zicree|102883|Marc Scott Zicree|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]’s exhaustive [b:The Twilight Zone Companion|183663|The Twilight Zone Companion|Marc Scott Zicree|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172520048s/183663.jpg|1489350], have explored the entire run, Brode decided to take a different approach. “I wanted to do a book where I only focused on the great ones and put the other ones aside.”
Not merely a puff piece, Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone portrays a complex view of the famed auteur. Brode is the author of more than 30 books, and this delicate balance is central to his body of work.
“I try to show in all my books, beginning with Shakespeare — even going back to Sophocles — to Spielberg today with Disney and Rod Serling in-between, the people I consider the great artists, popular entertainers, the ones who reached the masses — they are the ones who have a very balanced view,” says Brode. “Their politics are not easy. The artists who most move the masses are the ones who have that Yin/Yang between progressivism and traditionalism. And as I show in the book, Rod Serling is exactly that way.”
Brode, a self-professed child of the ’50s, happily proclaims that “Twilight Zone, along with rock ’n’ roll, Walt Disney films, and Westerns […:] formed me.”
Serling befriended the then second-year professor after the pair met at a 1971 Syracuse, New York, community-college event.
“As he was getting ready to leave, I just walked up to him,” Brode recalls. “‘Mr. Serling, I’m Doug Brode. I’m one of the new professors here. I would love to do an interview and article with you.” At the time, Brode was a regular contributor to the now-defunct Premiere-style publication Show Magazine. “Without a moment’s hesitation, he quickly pulled out a piece of paper — didn’t have a business card — wrote down his home phone number, and said, ‘Doug, I’m gonna be busy for the next month. If you can call me one month from today at this number, I’d love to set something up.’ Just like that, and he left. A month later to the day, I dialed the number, and an unmistakable voice picks up at the other end. I started to say, ‘Mr. Serling, you probably won’t remember me.’ ‘Yeah, is this Doug?’
The duo became fast friends and Serling became a mentor to the young Brode. Four years later, Serling died.
The early feedback on Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone has been overwhelmingly positive. Writer-producer Earl Hamner Jr. called it “A timely commentary on TV’s first truly great filmed weekly dramatic series The Twilight Zone, a show that has clearly passed the test of time and speaks again to each new generation of devoted fans.”
Director Rod Lurie lavished even more praise: “Brode, the finest scholar of American popular culture working today, has here written what is easily the most definitive study of The Twilight Zone — or any television program, for that matter!”
But one commentator meant more than all the others. According to Brode, the great [a:Richard Matheson|8726|Richard Matheson|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1200467797p2/8726.jpg], who penned many influential sci-fi/fantasy works ([b:I Am Legend|547094|I Am Legend|Richard Matheson|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51+zXgYbuHL._SL75_.jpg|2223519], [b:The Shrinking Man|33549|The Shrinking Man|Richard Matheson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168448228s/33549.jpg|936694]) and was responsible for several of the most beloved and memorable Twilight Zone scripts, including “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” “Nick of Time,” and “It’s a Good Life,” told Carol Serling: “[Brode:] saw things in my story that I never really intended to be there but that I learned about myself from him. I may never have intended them, but they are there!”
Brode currently splits his year between Our Lady of the Lake University and Syracuse University’s prestigious S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication, where he teaches pop culture, film history, and writing. A lifelong fan of Texas, San Antonio, and the Alamo, Brode is currently working along with illustrator Joe Orsak on the McFarland Press graphic novel Yellow Rose of Texas. Set almost entirely in 1836 San Antonio, the tale relates the story of African-American Texas Revolutionary War hero Emily Morgan. No publication date is currently set for Yellow Rose, but in October the University of Texas Press offers [b:Shooting Stars of the Small Screen: Encyclopedia of TV Western Actors 1946-Present|6203372|Shooting Stars of the Small Screen Encyclopedia of TV Western Actors (1946-Present)|Douglas Brode|/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|6383930], showcasing more of Bode’s obsessive pop-culture knowledge.
… (altro)