5 Great Movies Adapted From 5 Great Plays
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Some joke that William Shakespeare is Hollywood's most prolific screenwriter. You can thank Kenneth Brannagh mainly for that - but it shows the popularity of film adaptations. The statistic is said to be that over 66% of films come from other sources; novels, TV, comic books and - as I will focus on specifically in this article - plays.
I'll keep it brief here, as I feel I may have over indulged on the word count later on in this article! Excluding the work of Willy Shake himself (the bloke gets enough credit!), I'm going to put forward my favorite movies you may or may not know, were originally written and/or performed as plays. This is not a definitive list - it's not the be all and end all of play adaptations and I'm fully aware that others exist. I have not seen them all. Please don't get upset because I haven't. So without further ado...5. A Streetcar Named Desire
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The play by Tennessee Williams (whom I recently discovered was in fact a bloke! - who knew?) deals with a wide variety of heavy themes: mental health, homosexuality, prostitution, domestic violence, the class system, rape, misogyny, the decay of the south after the American Civil War... and it is all carried through to film expertly on the back of Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh respectively. Blanche and Stanley, Williams' tormented leads, have a chemistry that fizzes with sexual tension and this is captured on screen in the stifling setting of Elysian Fields - the home of Marlon Brando's alpha male antagonist. It is in the way that both film and play focus the drama in such a claustrophobic apartment, that allows for the tensions to be raised to an unbearable point. It is a common technique that will be explored later on in the article. As well as the claustrophobia, the visual representation of exposure, through the uncovered lamps of the apartment, translate from page to screen to film superbly. As age begins to grip hold of Blanche, she finds herself incapable of standing in the light. You come to understand the greater meaning of this metaphor as the story continues but due to Williams' clever writing and an excellent interpretation from Director Elia Kazan, these subtle hints are offered to the audience with just the right amount of intrigue - enough to spark curiosity without giving the whole twisting plot away. It has become a timeless classic, re-watched and forced down the throats of English literature students across the world who refuse to enjoy it because there isn't any color. The social references made were daring for the time and still serve to provoke a reaction in viewers today. For me, that is the sign of any great film!