A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare written in the mid-1590s.

Movie adaptations

The Shakespeare play has inspired several movies. The following are the best known.

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• 1935 - directed by Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle, produced by Henry Blanke and adapted by Charles Kenyon and Mary C. McCall Jr.
• The cast included James Cagney as Bottom, Mickey Rooney as Puck, Olivia de Havilland as Hermia, Joe E. Brown as Francis Flute, Dick Powell as Lysander and Victor Jory as Oberon.
• Some of Mendelssohn's music was used , but reorchestrated by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The fairies were choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska.
• The film won two Academy Awards:
• Best Cinematography - Hal Mohr
• Best Film Editing - Ralph Dawson
• It was nominated for:
• Best Picture - Henry Blanke, producer
• Best Assistant Director - Sherry Shourds
• Notably, Hal Mohr was not nominated for his work on the movie; he won the Oscar thanks to a grass-roots write-in campaign. The next year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences declared that it would not accept write-in votes for the awards.
• The film featured the unique screenwriting credit, Dialogue by William Shakespeare.
• 1968 - directed by Peter Hall.
• The cast included Paul Rogers as Bottom, Ian Holm as Puck, Diana Rigg as Helena, and Judi Dench as Titania.
• This film is based on Hall's popular Royal Shakespeare Company production, which was avant-garde at the time, but is looked back on as very dated, with mini-skirts and 1960's psychedelic overtones. Titania and her fairies wore body suits.
• 1996 - directed by Adrian Noble.
• The cast included Desmond Barrit as Bottom, Finbar Lynch as Puck, Alex Jennings as Oberon/Theseus, and Lindsay Duncan as Titania/Hippolita.
• This film is based on Noble's hugely popular Royal Shakespeare Company production. Its art design is eccentric, featuring a forest of floating light bulbs and a giant umbrella for Titania's bower.
• 1999 - written and directed by Michael Hoffman.
• The cast included Kevin Kline as Bottom, Michelle Pfeiffer as Titania, Sophie Marceau as Hippolyta, and Calista Flockhart as Helena.
• This adaptation relocates the play's action to Tuscany in the late nineteenth century.