ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the traditions of William Shakespeare on film in four parts of the world: Africa, the Middle East, Australia/New Zealand, and Latin America. It identifies unique continuities and discontinuities within those traditions, arguing that, in a discrete fashion, Shakespeare serves as a means of confronting issues of national identity at times of, variously, revolution, independence, and political change. Shakespearean criticism has established The Taming of the Shrew as the most pointed and trenchant of Shakespeare's plays about the condition of women and women's roles; and, interestingly, in Egyptian cinema there are, according to K. Yvette. The vastness and imperfectness of Africa as a regional category notwithstanding, there is a steady stream of films that testifies to Shakespeare's significant presence in some territorial contexts. In some Latin American contexts, Shakespeare is used to pass critical comment; and, in a striking illustration of the transmigration of texts, the hidden work becomes a lever with which to push an anti-imperialist agenda.
