Date: 2009 Posted by:El3mentaryPenguin Cast: Siobhan O’Sullivan (Marilyn), Kyle Phillips (Stan), Lorrie McInnis (Marie), Bevin Green (Simone Athens), Taylor Ashcroft (Pamela), Ramon Balderas (Lucius), Lanie Goodrich (Apemantus), Ruben Figueroa (Archie Baldes) Credits: Colour and Sound Moving Pictures Present. Directed by Josh Hensley, written by Lanie Goodrich and Josh Hensley, Duration: 1.38, 6.24, and 7.55
This curious effort in three parts looks like a student effort to modernise their study play. It would be difficult to recognise this as an adaptation of Timon of Athens if one had not been prompted beforehand; indeed, it is not too easy to recognise its debt to Shakespeare’s play even if one knows its source of inspiration. Yet, as clumsy as it is (with dialogue drowned out by wind and passing traffic) and with action almost impossible to follow (part one seems incomplete), it is intriguingly earnest and mysteriously oblique. It describes itself as “a story of the rottenness of society. Everything comes down to the dirty dollar”. It is worth watching twice to see how the young filmmakers try to hang on to Shakespeare’s play, even though they fail.
Date: 2008 Posted by:mcshnee Credits: Created by Caitlin Boulter, Daniel Fry, Tristan Schumacher and Alex Tinker, music by David Evans Cast: Alex Tinker (Imogen), Daniel Fry (Cloten) Duration: 6.16
This intriguing and stylish Australian short film is decribed as “drawing upon characters and ideas from Shakespeare’s Cymbeline“, its subject being “the destructive nature of greed”. It is probably a work better experienced than explained, but it features an unhappy couple (Imogen and Cloten), dividing up the belongings of a deceased woman, which include a copy of Shakespeare’s works, hidden within which (at Cymbeline) are some banknotes. It ends with the reading of a will, at which the complete works is bequeathed “to my cherished granddaughter Imogen Cymbeline”. It is well acted, very competently shot (the sound recording is less clear) and all together it is most pleasingly mysterious. One to watch and then watch again.
Date: 2006 Posted by:johnrobinhartel Credits: Directed and photographed by John Robin Hartel, written by Trevor Emmett and Kyle Farrell, edited by John Robin Hartel and Kyle Farrell, produced by Kyle Farrell and Trevor Emmett, for the Filme Company Cast: Camron Crooks (Ulysses), Trevor Emmett (Thersites), James Warmles (Paris), Brandon Smith (himself), Rich Ward (Troilus), Adi Beged-Dov (Cressida), Travis (Pandera), Kyle Farrell (Diomedes), Jamen Lee (Hector), Mike Johnson (Achilles), The Clerk (The Clerk) Duration: 5.55
This is a truly odd interpretation of of Shakespeare’s oddest play. Set among American small town slacker youth, it start with two young men in a car, one silent, the other smoking heavily while complaining of the damage cigarette smoke can do to children. They stop outside a store where two more young men are standing. The man smoking gets out of the car and berates the two for smoking themselves (“babykillers”). A young man and woman come out of the store as he goes in. The couple speak lovingly to each other, then she leave him to get in a car, where a young man takes some money from her. Another man joins them in the car, and she pats him on the leg, while the man she has left looks on ruefully. Elsewhere a man is trying to read a map, and another one offers to help him. The latter then talks to one of the men standing outside the store, whom he criticises for upsetting their mother. A thief runs out of the store and the man who helped the map-reader gives chase. He stops the thief and berates him, only to be struck down by the thief when he turns his back.
What has all this to do with Troilus and Cressida? The filmmaker has this to say on the YouTube comments:
Trevor explained the plot of the play to me, then we worked out a script in about an hour. When he handed it in though (it was a final for his Shakespeare class, I believe) everyone in the class was quickly pointing out which characters in the film represented which characters in the play, so it worked for its purpose.
Since there is no way anyone (outside of that English class, perhaps) would recognise this drama as being derived from Shakespeare’s play without prompting, our only clues are the cast list, which we are informed shows the players in order of appearance. So, the two men in the car are Ulysses and Thersites, with Ulysses the one with the smoking obsession. The two outside the store are Paris (in a green shirt) and the unquestionably unShakespearean Brandon Smith. The couple who come out of the store are Troilus and Cressida. The man in the car is Pandera (i.e. Pandarus), and they are joined in the car by Diomedes. The map reader is probably unidentified, as it must be Hector who helps him and Achilles whom Hector chases and who then turns on him at the end. Obvious, really.
Is it any good? That depends on what you are looking for. Viewed without prior knowledge of intentions, it’s a rough, puzzling short film that doesn’t go anywhere. But the puzzle’s the thing. It’s being able – or not being able – to see Shakespeare’s own odd work encoded in the film’s off-hand conceit that challenges the viewer and makes us look again. So, is Thersites the passenger?
Date: 2007 Posted by:MosesHouse Credits: Directed by Max Littman, writer/executive producer Michael Weinreich, produced by Lisa Shapiro, director of photography Maximilian Schmige, production manager Annie Wilkes, art director Janet Franco, editor Adriana Blancarte, gaffer/grip/camera operator Matthew Ace Palanca, music Edvard Grieg (Gavin Gamboa-piano, Timothy Beutler – drums, Luke Webb – guitar) Cast: Jason Davids Scott (Timon), Lauren Bruniges (Sherry), Maximilian Schwarzenbach (Samuel), Martha Mintz (Beatrice), Eric Hedlund (Raphael), Merlin Huff (Edgar (Servant no. 1), Nicholas Owen Tapis (Servant no. 2), Miguel Juanreichez (The Gardener) Duration: 7.12
Bloody modern dress, modern silent film (including intertitles, piano music and black-and-white cinematography), based on Timon of Athens (though in practice it seems to owe rather more to Titus Andronicus). As the film’s website puts it:
Timon’s Friendship Adventure is the story of a jovial, plump, rich man. His main concern is the happiness of those around him – so much so that his generosity soon results in his own bankruptcy. When he asks his friends for loans he discovers that friendship can sometimes be a one-way street.
Made in 2007 and featured at various film festivals. Just a shame about the electric guitar.
Date: 2002 Posted by:Futerra Credits: Directed by Roger Lunn, produced by Rebekah Gilbertson, Ed Gillespie, Alan Graves and Solitaire Townsend, music by Matt Scott, cinematography by Dave Griffiths, editing by Lucia Zucchetti, production design by Jane Harwood, costumes by Suzanne Barnes, sound by Alison Bown Cast: Cherie Lunghi (Titania), Mark Owen (Oberon), Keira Knightley (Helena) Duration: 4.04
The Seasons Alter is a promotional film made by Futerra, an organisation campaigning for climate change. It makes ingenious use of dialogue between Oberon and Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2 Scene 1 to highlight the issues of global warming, human complicity and human responsibility (“Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound; And thorough this distemperature we see The seasons alter”). Cherie Lunghi plays Titania, Lloyd Owen is Oberon, and Keira Knightley is their ‘daughter’ Helena (of course, they have no daughter in Shakespeare’s play). The film has been widely distributed on assorted free video sites.
Posted by bardbox 
Posted by bardbox 
Posted by bardbox 