On April 23, it was (probably) 460 years ago that William Shakespeare was born. So let's take this opportunity to recall some extraordinary adaptations of his plays... And at the same time, let's think about where our "movie Shakespeare" is.

              Perhaps the most daring version of Hamlet was created in the 1920s. In it, the Prince of Denmark was... a woman. The German "Hamlet: A Drama of Revenge" by Sven Gade and Heinz Schall was based on Edward P. Vining's book "The Mystery of Hamlet: An Attempt to Solve an Old Problem". According to the plot, the king and queen hide the sex of their offspring, because only a boy can inherit the throne; then the action unfolds more or less close to the original, with an adjustment to the relationship with Horatio (with whom the princess is in love) and Ophelia (with whom Horatio is in love). What woman would have been allowed to play the Prince of Denmark if not the greatest film actress of her time? Of course, it was Asta Nielsen (by the way, a Dane). The actress with a thin, nervous figure and huge, thoughtful eyes created her own, quite decent version of Hamlet: lyrical and melancholy, with explosions of almost boyish mischief and constant hidden drama in her eyes. In fact, the setting of the famous tragedy is where the female drama unfolds: it is a story of repressed femininity, repressed desires, and even repressed identity; after all, the motif of feigned insanity fits in perfectly with this line. The version, as we can see, has feminist overtones, although the focus here is shifted towards the melodramatic line of love for Horatio. It is worth adding that Asta Nielson was not the first to play the role of Hamlet: Sarah Bernhardt, Sarah Siddons, Julia Glover, Charlotte Cushman, Alice Marriott played him on stage, and Sarah Bernhardt managed to embody him in the movie; however, these productions did not go so far as to proclaim the prince himself a woman.

              "Henry V" or "The Chronicle of King Henry V and His Battle with the French at Agincourt" in 1944, directed by Laurence Olivier and starring Olivier in the title role, seems to be a traditional film. However, this film production is interesting precisely because of its play with tradition. It is stylized as a theatrical performance of the Elizabethan era: a theater stage, actors appear on it, and then the action gradually moves from the "theatrical" space to the "real" space (rather conventional: the frankly painted landscapes in the background remind us of the theatrical nature of the action). The actors, and especially Olivier-Henry V, have to play in two ways: either Olivier embodies the actor playing Henry or the king himself, which the great actor masterfully did. It should be added that the film was shot and released during the Second World War, so it also played a propaganda role: it is symbolic that the film was released shortly after the Allied landings in Normandy. A few decades later, in 1989, in the film version of the same "Henry V," Kenneth Branagh would also use the "play within a film" technique, though more of a hint, separating the costumed story of Henry the King (whom he played) and the figure of the Chorus narrator, played by Derek Jacobi, who was presented by our contemporary.

              Attempts to transfer Shakespeare to a different cultural soil proved to be extremely interesting and promising. The great Akira Kurosawa was a recognized master here. His 1957 film "Throne in Blood," starring Toshiro Mifune, is based on "Macbeth," and his 1985 film "Wounds" is based on "King Lear" (closely intertwined with the legends of daimyo Mori Motonari). Kurosawa skillfully combines Western and Eastern traditions: Shakespeare's plots are quite recognizable, but they are organically integrated into the scenery of medieval Japan. In addition, the director decides to stage the play in the spirit of the Japanese tradition, inspired by traditional "noh" theater and filming the Great Bard in the traditional Japanese epic film genre of jidaigeki. In short, if anyone has proven the universality of Shakespeare's plots, it is Akira Kurosawa, above all.

              Next, let's briefly mention the famous "West Side Story", the film version of the 1957 Broadway musical by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. In 1961, it was released by directors Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, and in 2021, a Steven Spielberg remake appeared. Although this is not a Shakespearean adaptation, the story draws on Romeo and Juliet and adds new, more modern dimensions to it: the plot is based on an interethnic (if you will, interracial) conflict between two New York gangs, which culminates in the tragic love of a "white" boy and a "brown" Latina girl. There is no Shakespearean poetry here, but instead a lot of incendiary dances and songs, some of which (primarily "Somewhere") have become famous. In addition, the focus is on social problems: in addition to the already mentioned interethnic conflict, there are problems of migration, urban crime (including youth crime), the myth of the "American Dream" that turns out to be unattainable for many, and so on. Instead of the elegant streets and villas of the Italian nobility, the scenery was the American slums, transformed into ethnic ghetto areas.

              A separate interesting trend in Shakespearean studies is the transfer of the plot to the present (or at least to relatively recent history). Somewhat paradoxically, this seemingly modern technique is in keeping with the spirit of Shakespeare's time... and Shakespeare's plays themselves: as we remember, the Bard and his contemporaries were not too concerned with historicism, and just as Renaissance religious and historical painting is full of signs of the present, so Shakespeare's characters, regardless of the time and place of action, are a reflection of Renaissance England. In short, it would hardly be a problem for Mr. William that his texts are pronounced by people in twentieth-century costumes, although it seems unusual to a modern audience (theater is a separate world and a separate aesthetic). So. First of all, the reader is likely to remember Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet" (1996), starring a young Leonardo DiCaprio and set in the mafia wars as an eventful background - it seems that the authors were inspired by "West Side Story", but without social issues. However, more than one or two Shakespearean plays have been adapted in this way. Let's take "Hamlet": in Michael Almereyda's 2000 film of the same name, starring Ethan Hawke in the title role, the action is transferred to modern New York, and the protagonist becomes the heir to a business empire. Interestingly, business instead of the kingdom (symptomatic, right?) appears in an earlier and very loose variation of the famous story, the Finnish drama "Hamlet Goes Business" by Aki Kaurismäki (1987).

              However, now I would like to talk more about the adaptations of "Richard III" and "Coriolanus": they are more topical. The first one was directed by Richard Loncraine in 1995, and the role of the famous villain is brilliantly played by Ian McKellen (who, together with the director, wrote the script). This "Richard III" is interesting to us first of all because it moves the action to England in the 1930s. Against the backdrop of this era of totalitarian regimes, the plot played with new colors, showing how authoritarianism was born. "It Can't Happen Here" was the title of Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel, a fictionalized story of the victory of a local version of fascism in the United States. Loncraine and McKellen show how this could have happened in England. Although it was this country that in reality became the main center of opposition to fascism, we should not forget that it had its sympathizers there, including King Edward VIII. However, the film also has a positive message: Richard's power does not last long, and with it his regime based on violence and lawlessness collapses.

              "Coriolanus" was filmed and reinterpreted in 2011; it was directed and starred by Ralph Fiennes. Compared to the previous Shakespearean stories mentioned above, this one is less popular and more, let's say, ambiguous. The action takes place in ancient Rome; Coriolanus, the hero of the war with the Volscians, the savior of Rome, claims the well-deserved title of consul - and loses in a conflict with unprincipled politicians and the crowd. The exiled commander unites with the Volscians, goes against Rome, but, after being persuaded by his mother, makes peace and dies at the hands of his angry allies. This is very short and simplistic. Such a plot can be interpreted in very different ways, which is what we see in the film adaptation of "Coriolanus." In Shakespeare, the confrontation between the character and the masses is striking: Coriolanus is the embodiment of Roman virtues such as straightforwardness, pride, valor, and service to the Fatherland; his outright contempt for everything that is beneath him irritates the plebs and eventually puts the commander in the position of an "enemy of the people" and makes him an outcast. However, Coriolanus is not perfect either: he is the embodiment of not only pride, but also a hubris that deprives him of public love for his merits and turns him into a double traitor in the end. Without changing the text of the play, Ralph Fiennes' adaptation transfers the action to the contemporary United States of America; this is logical, since the United States is not only a kind of "modern Rome" but has absorbed a lot of Roman heritage into its political culture. However, the reference to American reality also led to a rather serious re-reading of the image of Coriolanus and the play in general: American military policy is sometimes very controversial and is perceived ambiguously by society itself, so the film, released in the year of the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, contains quite distinct pacifist notes; Caius Martius himself is presented as a man whose personality was shaped-and at the same time crippled-by participation in campaigns from his youth. But if this-or any other-version of "Coriolanus" were to be released in Ukraine today, I think the audience would place different emphasis on it: it is about a veteran, a war hero, betrayed and rejected by his own country to please cunning and self-serving politicians.

              Somewhat similar to "Coriolanus" is "Titus Andronicus," also based on ancient Roman material and also about a war hero ("For forty years I was your soldier, Rome...") who comes into conflict with the authorities and takes revenge, dying in the process. This is perhaps Shakespeare's bloodiest play, with numerous murders, rape, beheadings, cannibalism... does it seem like we missed anything? If "Coriolanus" is complex, multifaceted, ambiguous, uncomfortable, and lends itself well to new interpretations, "Titus" with its "Tarantino" excesses is difficult to take fully seriously. Therefore, Julie Taymor offered an emphatically ironic, playful, postmodern interpretation in her 1999 film adaptation. The director works mainly in theater and in her film she skillfully combines theatrical and cinematic aesthetics. She creates an emphatically conditional space - a stylized Rome, where ancient architecture and armor are freely combined with modern costumes, loudspeakers and cars, and the Roman plot can be quite conveniently superimposed on modern political and military realities - only, unlike "Coriolanus," this is present here only in certain moments. "Titus"" by Julia Taymor is a perfect spectacle in its own way, spectacular, fanciful, highly artistic, able to captivate the "high-minded" viewer with unexpected images and numerous allusions, and the "simple" audience with a rich, poignant plot that will not let go of attention for a moment, "feeding" it with scenes that cause fear or pity alternately for different characters, and numerous allusions, and the "ordinary" viewer - with a rich, poignant plot that will not let go of attention for a moment, "feeding" it with scenes that evoke fear, pity for different characters, or rather dark laughter. The role of Titus Andronicus is played by Anthony Hopkins, and he plays it in such a way that his character's hatred and thirst for just revenge burns through the screen. Sir Anthony was paired with Jessica Lange, who embodied the villainous Empress Tamora, combining cruelty and lust with almost animalistic love for her sons and, ultimately, an understandable desire to survive and take revenge. Ten years later, Taymor would direct "The Tempest" (2010), a less fanciful film, but with such an innovation as Prospero the Woman (played by Helen Mirren). Speaking of "The Tempest", one cannot help but recall Peter Greenaway's "The Books of Prospero", not a Shakespearean adaptation, but a kind of fantasy film, a collage.

              But where is the "Ukrainian" Shakespeare? In Soviet cinema, he was adapted quite actively, from "Othello" by by Sergei Yutkevich, "Hamlet" and "King Lear" by Grigory Kozintsev, to a number of theatrical performances transferred to film. But-as it happened-almost all of them were filmed at Russian film studios. Ukraine, on the other hand, has never managed to film its own adaptation-even in the relatively cheap version of a movie-performance. There are various reasons for this; we will highlight political... and psychological ones.

              For centuries, Ukrainian culture has fostered provincialism, a sense of inferiority and secondariness compared to Russian culture. During the Russian Empire, Ukrainian - or rather, Ukrainian-language - theater was deliberately limited to rural themes. Shakespeare in Ukrainian? God forbid! Similarly, in cinema: Ukrainian (or, more precisely, "Little Russian") themes are again about the rural world, at best about the Cossacks (who, for all their importance for national identity, are still associated with the past and, moreover, with local, "regional" history). The Soviet Union-though, of course, they would never admit it-supported and contributed in every way possible to the reputation of Ukrainian cinema as "provincial" and "secondary." Ukrainian filmmakers adapted (not without problems) Ukrainian classics, and many adapted Russian classics (this was strongly encouraged)... but what about world classics? Not the adventure classics (like Dumas, who was successfully staged at the Odesa Film Studio by Jungwald-Hilkiewicz), but the "high" classics, like Lope de Vega or Moliere, who were filmed at Russian studios? There is no need to say that Ukrainian artists lacked creative and production capabilities, at least for films and performances; rather, we can talk about a kind of "creative tradition" according to which only their own classics could be produced in Ukrainian studios and in the Ukrainian language. And later, after independence? Here we can assume: firstly, a kind of inertia, and secondly, in the conditions of the constant financial and organizational crisis of the film industry, a constant "not yet". Ukrainian cinema has to either earn money, educate the audience, or travel to festivals (ideally, all of the above, but it doesn't happen that way). Where does the Great Bard fit into this? Apparently, our filmmakers think that the Ukrainian audience does not need him and is not interested in him... Although I would definitely go to the cinema to see the "Ukrainian Shakespeare". Wouldn't you?