Shakespeare in Performance: Film
Julius Caesar (1938, Dallas Bower)
| Title | Julius Caesar |
|---|---|
| Year | 1938 |
| Release Locations | GB |
| Director | Dallas Bower |
| Medium | Video |
| Length | 1 hrs, 41 mins |
| Play Connections | Julius Caesar (teleplay) |
| Series | Scenes from Shakespeare |
Description
For its time an ambitious "modern dress" version of Julius Caesar with special scenic effects from stock news footage and incidental music. The use of stock news footage had the effect of pushing the drama "backwards in depth and outwards in space." A contrasting school of theorists believed that the tv camera should instead concentrate on "closing in' to achieve an effect of intimacy. According to BBC producer Michael Barry, the production was influenced by Orson Welles's famous Mercury theatre production in New York City, which pioneered in re-appropriating Shakespearean drama for contemporary times. As Barry suggests, the poltical turmoil in Europe in the ominous years before the outbreak of WW II made this use of Julius Caesar particularly meaningful (Barry, Michael, "Shakespeare on Television," BBC Quarterly 9.3 [Autumn 1954]: 145)
Description from Shakespeare on Screen : an International Filmography and Videography by Kenneth S. Rothwell and Annabelle Henkin Melzer. ©1990 Kenneth S. Rothwell. Cited by permission. — Added 2008-11-14
Cast Overview
Production Team and Crew Overview
| Director | Dallas Bower |
|---|---|
| Producer | George More O'Ferrall |
| Composer | James Hartley |
| Scenic Effects | Malcolm Baker-Smith |
Production information courtesy of: Kenneth Rothwell