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Classic demolition: Why Shakespeare is not exactly "our contemporary," or, "dude, where's my hankie?"

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From: Literature/Film Quarterly
Date: 20020101
Author:Welsh, James M

Like Peter Shaffer's Mozart, I may be a vulgar man, but I do not lust after vulgar entertainments. Though my thesis here is not centrally about Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ronald Joffe, the adaptation of The Scarlet Letter Joffe directed is a convenient paradigm for what Hollywood has done to a classic text, beautifully photographed, ornamented with splendid art direction, and, as the credits announce, "loosely adapted." You may recall, it stars Gary Oldman as a hunky Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, Robert Duvall (who has seen far better roles) as a psychotic Chillingworth who has gone native and is ...

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