5/4/2016 - Shakespeare on Film season at BFI Southbank in May

BFI’s season will have a special focus on films that have re-invented works of the Bard in ways he is unlikely to ever have imagined.

BFI's landmark "Shakespeare on Film" season will continue in May at BFI Southbank in London, with a focus on films which have re-imagined the Bard's works in ways he is unlikely to ever have; Forbidden Planet by Fred M. Wilcox (1956) is The Tempest set in space. Yellow Sky by William A. Wellman (1948) is the same playwright set in the Old West. The Taming of the Shrew resonates in Gil Junger's American high school set romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) and George Sidney's Broadway musical Kiss Me Kate (1953). Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise took the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet to New York City in West Side Story (1961) and Baz Luhrmann's took it to California for his William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996). 

The season also includes more traditionalist works. One of such highlights will be the re-release of Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968). Considered by many as the ultimate cinematic adaptation of one of the Bard's most famous works, the film stars Leonard Whiting as Romeo, and he will be present on May 21 at BFI Southbank to speak about his experiences working on the film. An Oscar winning production, awarded at the Academy Awards for cinematography and costume design, and complete with a delicate score by Nino Rota, Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet has been digitally remastered especially for the season. 

For more information, the full "Shapespeare on Film" program and tickets, go to https://www.bfi.org.uk/