Challenge : Non-Shakespeare Shakespeare Movies?

At lunch today we were discussing movies.  Which led to Star Trek.  Which led to a discussion of Star Trek VI, which led to a discussion of Shakespeare movie references.  Ok, I may have been driving the discussion in that direction. 🙂

Here’s the question I was asked: What movie, that is not fundamentally a movie about Shakespeare, contains the highest amount of Shakespeare references?

Star Trek VI, of course, would be a good example.  Shakespeare in Love would not.

What do we think?

EDIT : I wasn’t very clear by “references,” I meant “actual quotes.”  Not just plot lines or character names.

6 thoughts on “Challenge : Non-Shakespeare Shakespeare Movies?

  1. Good point — though in this case (and I'll fix the question) we were thinking more about specific Shakespeare quotes. I'm not sure Lion King doesn't have many of those.

  2. Not sure whether it counts as a Shakespeare Movie or not, but Vincent Price's 1973 'Theatre of Blood' (Overlooked actor kills theatre critics in manner of deaths from Shakespeare plays) has a loads of the Bard (with quotes) in it!

  3. I've been thinking about this on and off all weekend. It's not a category I immediately have in my brain.

    Free Enterprise has a few—but they're mainly related to a production of Julius Caesar that William Shatner is producing.

    I think Bollywood / Hollywood would be my best selection for a film that doesn't obviously have something to do with Shakespeare (no one in it is putting on a play; it's not a retelling of a Shakespeare plot) yet that has a number of Shakespeare quotes / allusions in it—except all the quotes are slightly wrong:

    http://bardfilm.blogspot.com/2010/09/bollywood-hollywood.html

    How about TV shows that use Shakespeare? You'll find quite a number of times in M*A*S*H where Shakespeare is quoted or alluded to . . . and not always in conjunction with a play or a discussion of a Shakespeare character.

    kj

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *