Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- CHAPTER 1 Shakespeare, from stage to screen: a historical and aesthetic approach -- THE HISTORY OF SHAKESPEARE PRODUCTIONS -- The Shakespeare stage, or the absence of realistic illusion -- The Restoration stage, or the generalization of the decorated set -- The eighteenth-century stage, or the separation between actors and spectators -- The nineteenth-century stage, or the era of romantic realism -- From the talking stage to the silent screen -- The twentieth-century stage: minimalism and neo-realism -- SHAKESPEARE AND THE TALKING MOVIES -- What is a 'Shakespeare film'? -- The thirties: irreverence and extravaganza -- Laurence Olivier and Joseph Mankiewicz: between theatre and cinema -- Orson Welles: textual reconstruction and visual metaphors -- Franco Zeffirelli: realistic frames and literal illustrations -- Towards avant-garde Shakespeare films -- Kenneth Branagh: the return of realism -- The nineties: between avant-garde and realistic cinema -- The turn of the millennium: high technology and the blending of times -- CHAPTER 2 From theatre showing to cinema telling -- THE CONCEPTS OF SHOWING AND TELLING -- EDITING AND NARRATION -- Editing as a producer of meaning -- Flashbacks: editing as an ordering process -- Narrative rhythms -- Focusing and points of view: editing and identification -- The alternation of subjective perceptions -- The Shakespeare text and the limits of editing -- CAMERAWORK AND NARRATION -- Sequence shot, movement and focusing -- Unveiling and narration -- Slow-motion and quick-motion -- CHAPTER 3 Masking film construction: towards a 'real' world -- THEATRE AND CINEMA: FROM ALIENATION TO IDENTIFICATION -- Theatre, 'semiotization' and alienation -- Cinema, virtuality and realism -- Cinema, desire and ideology -- Cinema and denial.

VISIBLE OR INVISIBLE ENUNCIATION -- Soliloquies -- Camera angles and realistic connotations -- Melodramatic cinema -- Music: from redundancy to synergy -- Music, diegesis and illusion -- CHAPTER 4 Reflexive constructions: from meta-theatre to meta-cinema? -- ALIENATION THROUGH SETTING -- DUPLICATING THE FIGURE OF THE DIRECTOR AND/OR SPECTATOR -- REVEALING THE ACTOR AS AN ACTOR -- LOOKING AT THE CAMERA -- MIRRORS AND MIRROR EFFECTS -- UNCOMMON CAMERAWORK -- THE FILM-WITHIN-THE-FILM AND THE SCREEN-WITHIN-THE-SCREEN -- FILM QUOTES -- THE LIMITS OF META-CINEMA AND THE PROTECTION OF DIEGESIS -- CHAPTER 5 Screenplay, narration and subtext: the example of Hamlet -- CHAPTER 6 Case studies -- FEAR ON SCREEN: THE GHOST'S APPARITION IN 'HAMLET' -- DREAM ON SCREEN: THE EVE OF BATTLE IN 'RICHARD III' -- TRANCE ON SCREEN: THE 'OCULAR PROOF' AND 'FAINTING' SCENES IN 'OTHELLO' -- POWER ON SCREEN: ANTONY'S SPEECH IN 'JULIUS CAESAR' -- WOOING ON SCREEN: THE CONQUEST OF KATHERINE IN 'HENRY V' -- Bibliography -- Index.