BACK TO THE CLASSICS

BACK TO THE CLASSICS

A guide to your favorite adaptations and retellings of classic literature.

By Giovanna Cicalese

Classic literature has a certain mystique to it. It’s academic and elusive but also damn near impossible to read. I wish I was a classic literature lover, to be that cool girl with the Jane Austen collection under my arms, but it’s just too hard. Reading should be fun and it doesn’t have to be a chore. For years, Hollywood has done a beautiful little thing called repackaging your dream classic novel into accessible movies filled with all good one-liners you never got the meaning of.

Starting with the Bard himself, I would love to be a person who understands Shakespeare. All the quips and drama that have inspired artists for centuries are unfortunately often lost on me. While reading copies of No Fear Shakespeare for my lit courses has been helpful, what I think I’m lacking is a modern context for these plays – but lucky for me the film industry is full of Shakespeare retellings.

My personal favorite is Hollywood’s classic retelling of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, a story about a man so passionately in love with a beautiful woman that he would even get her socially repulsive sister a date to swoon over. Sound familiar? Taming of the Shrew has been adapted into “10 Things I Hate About You,” an iconic 1999 film full of teen shenanigans and romance. I think setting this story in a high school makes a perfect setting since over the top drama is just part of the teenage experience.

Shakespeare has a long history of Hollywood retellings, with countless iterations of Romeo and Juliet such as “West Side Story,” “Warm Bodies,” and even “Bring It On: In It To Win It.”. However, he is not the only classic author to have his work given a Hollywood makeover.

Jane Austen is another favorite among the movie making crowd, with her works being rediscovered by teen audiences every couple years. Her 1815 classic, Emma, was turned into cult classic 1995 film “Clueless.” Pride and Prejudice turned into “Bridget Jones’s Diary” as well as iconic adaptations in 2005 and 1995’s “Pride and Prejudice.” Lady Susan became “Love and Friendship,” Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park both have movies of the same name. Every Austen film is a great opportunity to dive head first into her catalog.

Shakespeare and Austen aren’t the only novelists with Hollywood credits. Here’s a nonexhaustive list of a few movies to help you along in your reading.

“She’s All That” and “Pretty Woman” are both based on George-Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion. Nathaniel Hawthrone’s The Scarlet Letter was adapted into the teen classic “The Easy A.” There are so many movies based on classic novels that are being reinvented every day in the film industry. If the movie is more accessible to you as a viewer there is no shame in that. They’re cult classics for a reason!