Monday, May 17, 2010

Well, if Titus could be a hit...

Bit behind the buzz on this one, but here are some photos and stills from the new Shakespearean film adaptation coming soon to a theater near you: Coriolanus, of all things, starring and directed by Ralph Fiennes. It might be rather "timely" -- anything about war seems to get that critical stamp of approval these days -- and it has modern setting and costumes. Plus, it certainly has an all-star cast, with Vanessa Redgrave and Brian Cox. But my biggest questions are going to be how Gerard Butler, known currently more for brawn than, um, facility with language, handles himself, and how Fiennes does as a director. A debut director, no less.

Coriolanus is one of those slightly oddball late plays with no performance history in Shakespeare's time, but it's a powerful examination of politics and authority nonetheless. Fiennes' stage performance of Coriolanus was highly acclaimed, and since I've never yet gotten to see him onstage in anything, much less Shakespeare, I am certainly dying of curiosity to see this film. It's getting some buzz, and who knows? It may just end up being an arthouse hit like Julie Taymor's Titus Andronicus. Which, incidentally, didn't strike me as the outpouring of genius that it was heralded to be, but that's a post for another day.

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