Romeo and Juliet (1968)

Consider this a last hurrah for my Shakespeare viewings in the year of his 400th deathday. It didn't seem right to go without a more straightforward screen adaptation, as opposed to a cultural translation or a story about putting on a play. I would have seen R&J much sooner, but it took a while to finish the Netflix wait, and then I forgot it until this week.

You know the plot, right? Teens from feuding families fall in puppy love, which raises tensions even further. After a couple fatalities, they make, shall we say, desperate escapes, with the bittersweet effect of ending the feud. This all takes place in the original setting, late Renaissance Italy, as opposed to the New York of West Side Story or the bizarre California of the Baz Luhrman update.

A Double Life (1947)

Could it really be the first time in 10 months that I accepted a Meetup invitation to a film? At any rate, I finally took advantage of AFI's Shakespeare festival, even if it meant yet another Othello adaptation.

OK, that's not a fair summary; it's more of an adaptation of the little-remembered Men Are Not Gods. Tony (Ronald Colman) is a stage actor admired for his talent but notoriously hard to get along with, not least because his method acting runs away with him. This is especially problematic when he plays Othello for an improbable 300+ nights, opposite his ex-wife (Signe Hasso), and develops auditory hallucinations. I won't say precisely what crimes he commits, but his temporary insanity does not prevent him from making the trail a bit difficult for the police to follow correctly. Then an acquaintance grows suspicious....

Omkara (2006)

Has it really been more than a year since my last Bollywood viewing? Well, the realization wasn't my reason for breaking the streak. I had hoped to see a Shakespeare-based movie around the 400th anniversary of his death, but Netflix had waits on the ones that interested me. This retelling of Othello just happened to become available last week.

For those who don't remember the gist of Othello, it starts with the Moorish general's interracial elopement to Desdemona against her father's will. When he passes over Iago for an appointed lieutenant of sorts, Iago schemes a vengeful manipulation. Not content to dishonor his replacement, he convinces Othello that Desdemona has been unfaithful. It does not end well for any major character.

Of course, in a movie set in India, even modern India, a black citizen would look rather out of place. Omkara, a.k.a. Omi, is instead a half-caste, which puts him beneath the marital dignity of most devout Hindus. Also, his elopement to Dolly initially came across as an abduction from her intended wedding. But these are not the most important changes....

Chimes at Midnight, a.k.a. Falstaff (1965)

You can tell it was pretty late in the directing career of Orson Welles. Not having enough friends left in Hollywood, he turned to European production companies I'd never heard of before. His use of black and white at this point probably had more to do with budget than artistry. Oh, other famous people still got involved -- Harry Saltzman, John Gielgud, and Jeanne Moreau come to mind -- but a sizable portion of the (rather few) credited names reflect Switzerland, France, or especially Spain for a reason. Thanks to contested distribution rights, you'll be lucky to find the film in the U.S. My luck took the form of a Welles festival at the AFI Silver Theater.

As you might have guessed from the second title, Welles plays Sir John Falstaff, a popular minor character from several Shakespeare plays. His moderate-length screenplay combines mostly relevant portions of the tetralogy consisting of Richard II; Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; and Henry V, plus some dialog from Merry Wives of Windsor and details from a 16th-century history text. Believe it or not, Welles saw fit to lose weight for a role consistently described as obese.