Here stands the quintessential film version of this play. For many people the image of Shakespeare in film is inseparable from Laurence Olivier’s performance in this “Two Cities” post-World War II production. But this canonical positioning shouldn’t blind us to the risky decisions that Olivier proudly made as the director of this film. His love for theater prevented him from hiding the origins of his material. He actually enhanced the immanent presence of the stage, the strange feeling of watching a play through cinema.

The freedom with which Olivier edited the text—cutting many verses while maintaining others, as well as the complete disposing of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s characters—introduced a new idea of fidelity in film adaptations. It is the oppressive presence of the décor, the beautiful echoing of the verses, the extension of the shots and the ghostly camera movements that make Olivier’s version so original and so far removed from the weakened, conventional TV-drama mise-en-scène of Shakespeare films to follow.

Please join curators Dale Stinchcomb and Peter Accardo for a guided tour of the exhibition, Shakespeare: His Collected Works at 6pm in the Edison & Newman Room, Houghton Library.