A High-School Rosaline?

In Shakespeare in Love, Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) calls Romeo and Juliet's Rosaline "a baggage we never even meet," but someday we may meet her—or, rather, an American high-school version of her—in a film of Rebecca Serle's YA novel When You Were Mine.

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Shakespeare-Movie Soliloquies and Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight

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Directors usually handle Shakespearean soliloquies in three ways: (1) they have actors speak directly to the audience, as they would have on the Elizabethan stage; (2) they have actors speak to the air, as if yammering on cellphones; or (3) they use a voice-over, as if we were wire-tapping the characters' brains.
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Speaking directly to the audience works well for villains, who share their nasty schemes, preparing us to watch with horror as they dupe unknowing victims. The technique also allows for dark comedy: for example, Ian McKellan's Richard III and Harry J. Lennix's Aaron (in Julie Taymor's Titus) act as satanic stand-up comedians, terrifying us and making us laugh with the same speech.
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Hamlet Film Clips

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TO BE OR NOT TO BE (3.1)


(Image from Roger Ebert's Film Festival website) Kenneth Branagh in his 1996 film.Mel Gibson (following the rest of 3.1) in Franco Zeffirelli's 1985 film.
Ethan Hawke in Michael Almereyda's 2000 film.
Derek Jacobi in a 1980 production directed by Rodney Bennett.Kevin Kline in a 1990 New York Shakespeare Festival production.Laurence Olivier from his 1948 film. (For an analysis of Olivier's performance, click here.)An actor (Alan Mowbray) recites part of the soliloquy with help from Doc Holliday (Victor Mature) in John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946).A director (Rowan Atkinson) helps Shakespeare (Hugh Laurie) spruce up the "dodgy" original soliloquy in a sketch from Comic Relief. OPHELIA'S MAD SCENE (4.5) Kate Winslett from the Branagh version: part one , part two.
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