Shakespeare works on screen (if it works, which isn't always) because:I'll ask if anyone has enjoyed a Shakespeare movie?
1) He was writing for the stage, which, while not identical to screen writing, carries some of the main constraints, specifically and most of all: the fact of time. We can read a book at our leisure--in the case of something as long and deliberately paced as LOTR it is impossible not to--while drama, live or recorded, is a real-time phenomenon. Yes, you can back up the DVD, but in doing so you disrupt the flow in a way that turning a page back does not. Which brings us to point two:
2) Our brains process text differently than sight and sound. When reading, there is the instantaneous sensory and motor interaction of moving our eyes across the page, the momentary but continuous process of parsing, and a ongoing process of building the mental narrative in our minds from the schematics on the page. It is nearly a precise mirror of the process of writing prose, btw. By contrast, because of the real-time nature of drama, and the fact that it doesn't have to pass through the textual linguistic parser in our brains, there is only a sensory element and the narrative building. The result is a more visceral experience, albeit a more passive one.
3) Shakespeare's writing for his "action" scenes is notably different than that for his soliloquies, or clowning, or patter, or romance. Compare:
To:HAMLET
Come on, sir.
LAERTES
Come, my lord.
They play
HAMLET
One.
LAERTES
No.
HAMLET
Judgment.
OSRIC
A hit, a very palpable hit.
LAERTES
Well; again.
KING CLAUDIUS
Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
Here's to thy health.
Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within
Give him the cup.
HAMLET
I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile. Come.
They play
Another hit; what say you?
LAERTES
A touch, a touch, I do confess.
KING CLAUDIUS
Our son shall win.
When we think "Shakesperian" we think of the lofty poesy of the soliloquies first, and they do roll trippingly off the tongue, as it were.HAMLET
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
But comic scenes, or (more to the point) scenes depicting actual combat, have a different pacing entirely. He doesn't let the words get in the way of the action.There are ragged edges to this rule: the final battlefield conversation between Macduff and Macbeth, for example, is far less pointed than that from Hamlet excerpted above--but then, it's not only explaining a key plot point (one very similar to that involved with Éowyn and the WK), it's also setting up the final confrontation of the play. It requires setup to make the payoff bigger. Éowyn and the WK are supporting players. It's a great scene, but it's a side issue. If one was writing a script that was Rohan-centric, the textual buildup would fit better--but that wouldn't be LOTR. It might be fun, though.
4) He's Shakespeare. We have different expectations for his stuff than for any other material. We wouldn't put up with Elizabethan English otherwise (well, maybe some of Marlowe). In terms of popularity, you have to jump 200 years before you hit someone whose works still have comparable currency--Austen--and her language is much, much more familiar.
Thought experiment: how would Shakespeare have written the confrontation between Éowyn and the WK? Ignoring for the moment that the WK is more a plot function (he's EEEEEEEEEEEEvil!) than a character, of course, and so Will probably wouldn't be all that interested in the scene.
Eh, maybe not.ALARUMS
Éowyn
Begone, foul lord of carrion! Unclean
And wicked spirit, leave the dead in peace!
WK
Come not between the Nazgûl and his prey,
Thou wretched boy, lest thee be plucked untimely
From this warlike field, and left lamentable
In thy devour'd flesh before the Eye.
Éowyn
Yet hinder you I shall, if in my arm
The power I possess. Do what you will.
WK
Thou foolish knave! No man of woman born
May hinder me!
Éowyn (laughs)
Fly, then, if death's sharp sting
Still gives thee pause; no living man am I,
But Éowyn, daughter to Eomund. Begone!
For I shall smite thee if thou touchest him.
