Did you know that classic film Casablanca [1942] was based on an unproduced play titled Everybody Comes to Rick’s? by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison?; or that film Moonlight [2016] was based on another unproduced play titled Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney? Many a great film first originated in a play, and because of this origin, these films often rely much on performances and have certain “intimacy” to them not found in other films. I previously reviewed such plays-turned-films as Prelude to a Kiss [1992], Carnage [2011], It’s Only The End of the World [2016], Marjorie Prime [2017] and Una [2017], and other notable films in this category include Seventh Heaven [1937], Brief Encounter [1945], Steel Magnolias [1989], Glengarry Glen Ross [1992], Meet Joe Black [1998], Closer [2004], Doubt [2008] and August: Osage County [2013]. Below are ten great films that first originated in plays (excluding Shakespearean adaptations).
I. The Seventh Seal [1957]
Play: Trämålning (Wood Painting) [1954] by Ingmar Bergman
This well-known masterpiece of a film by Ingmar Bergman stems from a one-act play by Bergman himself. He wrote a play titled Trämålning (Wood Painting) and it was initially supposed to be a play to be performed by students. In the story, the country is suffering because of the Black Death pandemic and a young Knight with his Squire have just returned from the Crusades. The land is in panic, and, unwittingly, the Knight joins a wagon of travelling performers. Death is also their follower, challenging the Knight to a play of chess. What will be the outcome? Philosophical, visually-striking and full of symbolism, The Seventh Seal is an uncanny portrayal of the Middle Ages and an iconic film in the history of cinema.
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