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Films

Shakespeare in Hollywood

Francis Akpata argues that Shakespeare would be a film director not a playwright in today’s high-media world.

I aim to show that dramatists like William Shakespeare and Euripedes find their continuation in the modern popular film industry. Their works of art, like all great works, represent the great achievements of the human will. Shakespeare’s plays fall into the class of art Nietzsche described as the “highest task and the proper metaphysical activity of this life.” (The Birth of Tragedy) But if Shakespeare was alive today he would be a screenwriter/director in Hollywood, not a playwright writing drama for Broadway or the West End.

He has more in common with modern filmmakers than with modern playwrights.

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