25th MARCH 2017, WORLD THEATRE DAY

It was March 27, 1961, when in Vienna was established the first International Day of Theater.
Ennesimo Film Festival wants to homage to the theater, after all there would be no movie if it were not theater!


Over the years, the bond between the film and the theatrical world has always been intense. The interconnections between the stage and the camera is not unique to the plots, also for its actors. Laurence Olivier, Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, Judi Dench, Paul Newman are all stage performers who have achieved the fame thanks to the films. The cinema does not forget its deep connection with the stage, and so that many are the theatrical screenplays adapted to film.

Let’s do a test … What are the first titles that come to mind?

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Come on… Think about it!

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Among the first authors, of course Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of the XVII century, and his work Romeo and Juliet. From the USA to India, from English to Japanese, Shakespeare’s work has been adapted in many different ways: traditional, humorous, zombies, sci-fi. One of the most famous adaptations remains Baz Luhrmann movie Romeo + Juliet. This interpretation is set in a postmodern Verona Beach and the film takes (more or less) faithfully the dialogue, even the actress Claire Dane, plays Juliet, said that during the first shooting of the final monologue of Romeo (Leonardo diCaprio) the interpretation of Di Caprio was so moving to make her burst into tears … obviously ruining the scene.

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Among the works of Shakespeare presented on the big screen are even The Taming of the Shrew by Franco Zeffirelli (starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Titus, Othello, West Side Story, Forbidden Planet, Richard III – A man, a king, Hamlet.  

Kenneth Branagh in Hamlet

Director Roman Polanski  realized the work of God of Carnage written by Yasmina Reza, and bringing Carnage on the big screen. The stage flows throughout the film, because it is structured like a play. Carnage in fact combines the pleasure of the form to the value of the history.

Even A Streetcar Named Desire is an adaptation of a play. The film is produced in 36 days only and the script is signed by the playwright who had signed the play Tennesse Williams. But it undergoes several revisions to remove references to homosexuality. The charming young Marlon Brando, star of both stage and screen, reached the popularity thanks to this film.

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After 3 years of successes in the theater, The Dinner Game is presented in French cinema. Plot is very simple: a group of friends met every week, presenting a moron, the player who has the most stupid win. The action is fast, scenes are hilarious and the audience can not stop laughing and think about how things totally extraordinary happen in a completely normal circumstance. Despite the difficulties in production (it was filmed mostly in a single apartment), with more than 9 million box office, the film is ranked second at the box office in France after Titanic.

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Recently, it happened also see the opposite tendency, namely narratives born to movie interpretation, it has been adapted to the stage. Especially musicals, such as Dirty Dancing, Fame, Flashdance, Footloose, Hairspray. In some way this transformation has sealed in a definitive way that connection between cinema and theater, made of different languages that are read, are interpreted and especially respected by each other.