Dr. Samuel Crowl will speak on Orson Welles’s films at The Shakespeare Guild’s April 26 meeting
Dr. Samuel Crowl, Trustee Professor of English, is the featured speaker at The Shakespeare Guild’s April 26 meeting.
The event is part of The Shakespeare Guild’s 2016-17 series of engagements, each of which features Guild director John Andrews interviewing a Shakespearean scholar, actor, director, or filmmaker. The Shakespeare Guild meeting will take place at 8:00 at the National Arts Club in Manhattan; it is free and open to the public.
Andrews will interview Crowl about Orson Welles’s Shakespearean films, particularly “Chimes at Midnight,” which is Welles’s 1965 adaptation of Henry IV I and II. Shakespeare critics widely dismissed the film upon its initial release, but Crowl’s 1980 article, published in Shakespeare Quarterly, effectively pointed out the merits of the film.
“It is now generally considered the greatest Shakespeare film ever made. I was the first Shakespearean to make such a claim for ‘Chimes,’” Crowl notes. “The article not only turned the tide about Welles’s film but also helped to establish Shakespeare on Film as a legitimate branch of Shakespeare Studies.”
Crowl describes the April 26 event as “something of a homecoming” for John Andrews and himself. Andrews was the editor of Shakespeare Quarterly when Crowl’s groundbreaking article was first published.
“His faith in my work was a great boost for my career,” Crowl explains, “which now includes six books on various aspects of Shakespeare in Performance.”
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