ABSTRACT
The present chapter takes over from where Chapter Two left off – in strictly diachronic terms – in the development of film as the seventh and, arguably, the most popular and accessible art-form. At the same time it seeks to identify a critical phase in the practices and theoretical discourses of film, whereby theatre and theatricality are no longer regarded as anathema by filmmakers and producers, rather a potential source of creative inspiration and interaction between the respective performance media. The case studies and their theoretical implications will present this period as a watershed when theory and practice converged to promote a creative alchemy and a dynamic reciprocity between film and theatre. What the case studies have in common is their capacity for integrating the theatricality of the play performance into the medium of film to create a hybrid that partakes of the aesthetics of both. The case studies selected for their exceptional quality of cinema-theatre fusion are Laurence Olivier’s Henry V (1944), Akira Kurosawa’s Donzoko/The Lower Depths (1957), Stuart Burge’s Othello (1965), Peter Brook’s The Marat Sade (1967), Louis Malle’s Vanya on 42nd Street (1994) and David Mamet’s Catastrophe (2000).
