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.
Showing posts with label Shakespeare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shakespeare. Show all posts
Monday, May 17, 2010
Friday, November 21, 2008
Watch Jeremy Irons suffer
One of the benefits of being sick is that you do things like watch movies you have been meaning to get to for a while (that is, if you're not so sick that you end up watching marathons of America's Next Top Model, as I once did and then prayed for death rather than such suffering).
So I finally got around to Michael Radford's lush period film of The Merchant of Venice, starring Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, and Al Pacino as Shylock. An interesting film. Too lush and rather erratically paced and clunky in parts, with very different acting all around. Fiennes brings the kind of crazily intense emotional register that made him famous in Shakespeare in Love; Irons brings his understated suffering that my brother mocks so much, a really fine performance; Pacino is great to watch, and yet his speech patterns do jar a little bit sometimes, a little bit "on this, the day of my daughter's wedding." For me, Lynn Collins was a real discovery. A very fine actress, very classical and subtle, with beautiful diction (she's an American putting on a British accent here). The famous courtroom scene with Pacino was extremely interesting. I never really thought enough about just how polar these two characters are, and this is the first time that they meet in spite of the fact that the whole play turns on them both.
This film was mostly talked about for The Kiss, a rather quick peck between Bassanio (Fiennes) and Antonio (Irons). Radford motivated the whole sacrificial loan bit and the final test with Portia's ring, in which Bassanio gives away the ring he swore to her that he'd keep forever to the man (he thinks) who saved Antonio's life, with a love triangle. Antonio and Bassanio have such a deep love between them -- in this version, sexual as well -- that Portia quickly identifies it as a threat to her own future relationship with her husband. By scaring and forgiving her husband, she ensures that he will prioritize her in the future, leaving poor Antonio rather out in the cold in spite of having saved his life. Incidentally, Radford mentioned in the director's commentary that he had to cut The Kiss for American TV, as well as the Veronese frescoes in the background that show some nudity. Ashcroft and his purple velvet drapes, anybody?
Pacino did a fine job with the most famous speech, "Hath not a Jew eyes?" He's quite sympathetic, helped along by some judicious cuts, but there is no getting away from the ultimate ruthlessness of the character. What I found interesting was the portrayal of his daughter Jessica, who in the play is also rather ruthless, robbing her father and running off with a Venetian gentleman. She trades her father's ring that was given to him by her dead mother for a monkey, producing one of Shylock's most sympathetic moments. But the film actually ends with Jessica staring across the water (presumably towards Venice, where her father is now an outcast) and fingering that very ring. Her melancholy and guilt are probably the most drastic modifications to this play's controversial anti-Semitism that could possibly be made. I found it a very interesting film version.
For comparison, try the '70s-ish version with Laurence Olivier as Shylock. Heretical though it may be, I really found more food for thought in this one.
Btw, Lynn Collins will next be seen onscreen as Silver Fox in Wolverine. Seriously.
So I finally got around to Michael Radford's lush period film of The Merchant of Venice, starring Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, and Al Pacino as Shylock. An interesting film. Too lush and rather erratically paced and clunky in parts, with very different acting all around. Fiennes brings the kind of crazily intense emotional register that made him famous in Shakespeare in Love; Irons brings his understated suffering that my brother mocks so much, a really fine performance; Pacino is great to watch, and yet his speech patterns do jar a little bit sometimes, a little bit "on this, the day of my daughter's wedding." For me, Lynn Collins was a real discovery. A very fine actress, very classical and subtle, with beautiful diction (she's an American putting on a British accent here). The famous courtroom scene with Pacino was extremely interesting. I never really thought enough about just how polar these two characters are, and this is the first time that they meet in spite of the fact that the whole play turns on them both.
This film was mostly talked about for The Kiss, a rather quick peck between Bassanio (Fiennes) and Antonio (Irons). Radford motivated the whole sacrificial loan bit and the final test with Portia's ring, in which Bassanio gives away the ring he swore to her that he'd keep forever to the man (he thinks) who saved Antonio's life, with a love triangle. Antonio and Bassanio have such a deep love between them -- in this version, sexual as well -- that Portia quickly identifies it as a threat to her own future relationship with her husband. By scaring and forgiving her husband, she ensures that he will prioritize her in the future, leaving poor Antonio rather out in the cold in spite of having saved his life. Incidentally, Radford mentioned in the director's commentary that he had to cut The Kiss for American TV, as well as the Veronese frescoes in the background that show some nudity. Ashcroft and his purple velvet drapes, anybody?
Pacino did a fine job with the most famous speech, "Hath not a Jew eyes?" He's quite sympathetic, helped along by some judicious cuts, but there is no getting away from the ultimate ruthlessness of the character. What I found interesting was the portrayal of his daughter Jessica, who in the play is also rather ruthless, robbing her father and running off with a Venetian gentleman. She trades her father's ring that was given to him by her dead mother for a monkey, producing one of Shylock's most sympathetic moments. But the film actually ends with Jessica staring across the water (presumably towards Venice, where her father is now an outcast) and fingering that very ring. Her melancholy and guilt are probably the most drastic modifications to this play's controversial anti-Semitism that could possibly be made. I found it a very interesting film version.
For comparison, try the '70s-ish version with Laurence Olivier as Shylock. Heretical though it may be, I really found more food for thought in this one.
Btw, Lynn Collins will next be seen onscreen as Silver Fox in Wolverine. Seriously.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
As You Like It
You may barely have heard about Kenneth Branagh's new Shakespeare film, since HBO Films decided to skip theatrical release, debuted it a couple of times on TV in August, and sent it straight to DVD. Herewith follows my disappointed little Amazon review:
'Beautiful' seems to be the word of praise most used for this movie, and visually gorgeous it certainly is. It is probably worth watching for that alone. But this comedy, usually hailed as the most witty and sparkling of Shakespeare's comedies, turns into a sort of fest of overblown emotions without the wit to leaven them. It's not helped by its leading lady, Bryce Dallas Howard, who is a gorgeous and well-spoken Rosalind without a lot of range or irony. Only in the epilogue does she really show much spark. Simply speaking, you wish that the characters were taking themselves a little less seriously.
Branagh is, as always, a superb director, but it's the adaptation that's lacking slightly here. The much-debated Japanese setting is not terribly illuminating in any way, unlike his Hamlet transposition which skilfully used the 1848 pan-European setting to provoke reflection on the political and philosophical volatility of the time period and of the text -- a true feat. Here, a few title cards are thrown up with some vague historical background which is then forgotten; the film could just as well have taken place in a quasi-Japanese fairytale world (the equivalent of, oh, let's see, the English Forest of Arden!) without any feeble explanation. It's just pretty. [To elaborate here, it would have been a hell of a lot less unsavory to have a bunch of white people romping around quasi-Japan than Japan. I can think of ways it could have worked really interestingly, so that the Europeans living in their little enclave learned from venturing outside it, etc., but... it did not.]
Romola Garai is a hilarious Celia, so much so that I found myself wishing she had played Rosalind. The other standout was Adrian Lester, who managed to convey a believably villainous but then instantly sympathetic Oliver. Branagh fans were hoping wildly for him to play Jaques or Touchstone; you'll be wishing that afterwards, too, as Kevin Kline was a good but rather monochromatic Jaques (if Branagh had cut the monologue before 'All the world's a stage,' it might have helped), and Molina's Touchstone was not often funny. (Really, that's what I keep coming back to--I ought to have been laughing my head off, and barely ever cracked a smile.)
The DVD is set at low volume, so be prepared to jack it up. Sadly, no director commentary, as I would have loved to hear Branagh talk about his creative shot choices and movement in detail. Instead, there's a crap 5-minute featurette that tells you nothing much about his creative process, but at least provides some behind-the-scenes shots of the genius at work to keep his fans satisfied.
The bottom line: a must-see, of course, for Shakespeare and Branagh fans, who will enjoy critiquing it and/or adoring it. Will probably do well for period-film-lovers based on its visual beauty.
I should warn you all that regardless of my disappointment with this film, I have been on a big Branagh kick lately, so expect more of him.
'Beautiful' seems to be the word of praise most used for this movie, and visually gorgeous it certainly is. It is probably worth watching for that alone. But this comedy, usually hailed as the most witty and sparkling of Shakespeare's comedies, turns into a sort of fest of overblown emotions without the wit to leaven them. It's not helped by its leading lady, Bryce Dallas Howard, who is a gorgeous and well-spoken Rosalind without a lot of range or irony. Only in the epilogue does she really show much spark. Simply speaking, you wish that the characters were taking themselves a little less seriously.
Branagh is, as always, a superb director, but it's the adaptation that's lacking slightly here. The much-debated Japanese setting is not terribly illuminating in any way, unlike his Hamlet transposition which skilfully used the 1848 pan-European setting to provoke reflection on the political and philosophical volatility of the time period and of the text -- a true feat. Here, a few title cards are thrown up with some vague historical background which is then forgotten; the film could just as well have taken place in a quasi-Japanese fairytale world (the equivalent of, oh, let's see, the English Forest of Arden!) without any feeble explanation. It's just pretty. [To elaborate here, it would have been a hell of a lot less unsavory to have a bunch of white people romping around quasi-Japan than Japan. I can think of ways it could have worked really interestingly, so that the Europeans living in their little enclave learned from venturing outside it, etc., but... it did not.]
Romola Garai is a hilarious Celia, so much so that I found myself wishing she had played Rosalind. The other standout was Adrian Lester, who managed to convey a believably villainous but then instantly sympathetic Oliver. Branagh fans were hoping wildly for him to play Jaques or Touchstone; you'll be wishing that afterwards, too, as Kevin Kline was a good but rather monochromatic Jaques (if Branagh had cut the monologue before 'All the world's a stage,' it might have helped), and Molina's Touchstone was not often funny. (Really, that's what I keep coming back to--I ought to have been laughing my head off, and barely ever cracked a smile.)
The DVD is set at low volume, so be prepared to jack it up. Sadly, no director commentary, as I would have loved to hear Branagh talk about his creative shot choices and movement in detail. Instead, there's a crap 5-minute featurette that tells you nothing much about his creative process, but at least provides some behind-the-scenes shots of the genius at work to keep his fans satisfied.
The bottom line: a must-see, of course, for Shakespeare and Branagh fans, who will enjoy critiquing it and/or adoring it. Will probably do well for period-film-lovers based on its visual beauty.
I should warn you all that regardless of my disappointment with this film, I have been on a big Branagh kick lately, so expect more of him.
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