The intersection of Shakespeare and popular culture: an intertextual examination of some millennial Shakespearean film adaptations (1999-2001), with special reference to music

This dissertation analyses millennial film adaptations of five of Shakespeare's plays with a specific focus on a selection of different kinds of film. These are William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999: Dir. Michael Hoffman), 10 Things I Hate About You (1999: Dir. Gil Junger), Hamlet (2000: Dir. Michael Almereyda), Titus (1999: Dir. Julie Taymor), and Scotland, PA (2001: Dir. Billy Morrissette). The films covered include both box office and independent, textually close to Shakespeare's words or not, all totally different from each other. This thesis contextualises these film adaptations within the realm of film studies, music theory, Shakespeare performance theory, critical theory and popular culture. Rather than analysing each Shakespearean film adaptation purely on an aesthetic level, my dissertation will identify and analyse each director's "reading" of the specific play that is the basis of the cinematic interpretation. The analysis of the filmic adaptation of a literary text always reveals something through what directors put into film as well as what they leave out. The focus of this dissertation is not on how faithful a film is to Shakespeare's text, but lies in how the differences between the film and text illuminate what a director perceives as "meaning" in Shakespeare's texts. My analysis looks at these Shakespearean film adaptations as representations of specific film genres and styles, products of a specific historical and cultural context, and in some cases with a specific target audience in mind. In my exploration of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, 10 Things I Hate About You, Hamlet, Titus and Scotland, PA my dissertation examines the motivation and agenda involved in each of these adaptations. Each director has adapted into film one of Shakespeare's plays to convey both a certain interpretation of the play and its cultural relevance to their audiences. Traditionally the study of adaptation in film has focused on the question of fidelity between a film and its source text. More recently the focus of film adaptation has shifted towards the analysis and reception of intertextuality. The term intertextuality, as it is used in this dissertation, refers to the ways in which texts are built out of and draw upon prior texts, genres and discourses, a subject which has received comparatively little attention in studies of Shakespeare on film. In particular my thesis builds upon the analysis of popular culture in cinematic 4 adaptations of Shakespeare's work, and dissects and analyses each film's intertextual layers and use of music. Since the emergence of the medium of film, music has been associated with cinema. With the development of film technology, sound and music are now considered equally important components of films. However, few critics have explored music in Shakespeare on film. This dissertation examines the eclectic musical styles present in Shakespeare on film, which includes such diverse styles as high opera and popular contemporary music. My analysis looks at how music functions in a variety of ways in each film, from conveying emotions through tone, lyrics and placement, to its role in marketing strategies employed by filmmakers.