Though in the beginning of Kenneth Branagh’s screen adaptation of Henry V Derek Jacobi implores that we try to “think” when the players speak of Agincourt that we “see” the commotion (Prologue. 27), we soon realize that pretending is not...

In the resolution of most of Shakespeare’s comedies, the main characters, almost without exception, find love and happiness. However, this is certainly not the case in Twelfth Night. Whilst the marriages of Olivia and Sebastian, and Orsino and...

To some extent, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are two figures who are manipulated unfairly by both Claudius in the scheming, and Hamlet in his tricks, and one can therefore see them sympathetically as victims to more powerful people; nonetheless,...

At once a superhero action film, a fantasy, and a Shakespearean family drama, 2011’s Thor (dir. Kenneth Branagh) explores the malleability of film genre. While the film’s archetypal narrative, a tale of a young man who must learn to grow up in...