As You Like It (7/11/20)

I liked it. I didn’t love it. This was a black and white 1936 film version starring Laurence Olivier and Elisabeth Bergner. Oddly, she got top billing. Not oddly, she was married to the director of the film, Paul Czinner. More to the point, the score for the film was written by William Walton (1902–1983).

I liked the score. I am not a dyed-in-the-wool Shakespeare scholar but it seemed to me that Walton played a little fast and loose with some of the songs from the Shakespeare text. On at least one occasion, it seemed to me as though a song usually sung by Touchstone (the Fool) was reassigned to a different character, and it occurred much earlier in the film than it does in the play.

The story, of course, is filled with characters assuming other lives, characters assuming other genders, and characters behaving in a silly manner. Not quite Monty Python silly, but pretty darn close. Hey, it’s a Shakespeare comedy.

Not surprisingly, all ended well (but that’s another play/movie for another time). The music by William Walton, though, was totally on spot.

ConcertMeister