The Granddaddy of Modern Tempests

Prospero's Books. Dir. Peter Greenaway. Perf. Sir John Guelgud, Michael Clark, Isabelle Pasco, and Orpheo. 1991. Videocassette. Media / Video Treasures, 1996.

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In 1991, Peter Greenaway released Prospero's Books, a dense, deep, dark derivitive of The Tempest.  It's not for everyone.

Prospero's Books is another film I'm glad to have seen in the theatre—even more so because it (amazingly) hasn't been released on DVD yet.  Sir John Gielgud speaks / reads / recites nearly every line in the play in the film in the audio track in the screenplay in the director's vision.  And if all that layering is confusing, wait until you see the film.  

The film is layered, the screen often split into two or four or more two-dimensional segments and just as many (or more) three-dimensional ones.  

Does anyone remember Myst, the computer game set on an island where mysteries abound?  Watching Prospero's Books is very much like playing that game.  (Note:  The game was released in 1993, so a Greenawayian influence is entirely possible.)

But I don't recall any nudity in the computer game; however, it's very hard to find a scene in the film that doesn't have nudity.  

For that reason alone, the film is not for all viewers.  The nudity is, I suppose, part of an artistic vision rather than an intention to titillate, but it's pervasive. 

Below is the (nudity-free) epilogue to the film.  The splash of water toward the end is part of the rich and strange visual layering. 

Until it comes out on DVD, the film will be something of a rarity.  If your library has a copy, give it a try!

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Links: The film at IMDB.

Straightforward Version of The Tempest

The Tempest. Dir. John Gorrie. Perf. Michael Hordern, Warren Clarke, Pippa Guard, and David Dixon. 1980. DVD. Ambrose Video, 2001.

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From a fragment and through a few derivative works, we arrive at a film version of the play itself.  The BBC Tempest is a straitforward production.  There are very few surprises here.  Ariel is a waif-like wisp who tends to disappear in a Kurosawa-esque wipe.  Miranda is Miranda.  The storm is a BBC sound stage storm.

Michael Hordern, who plays Prospero, is one of those English actors who have been around for sixty years or so and has been in tons of things.  He played Baptista in the Zeffirelli Taming of the Shrew, for example.  He's a solid Prospero.

In his version of Prospero's speech at V.i.44-57,  the surprise here is that the speech (unlike Patrick Stewart's fragmentary version) doesn't build to a climax.  Instead, the camera pulls away from Prospero as he starts to disclaim power, and the final line ("And deeper than did ever plummet sound / I'll drown my book") is almost thrown away.  It's a metaphor.  I'm sure of it.  As he distances himself from his So Potent Art, we are distanced from him.

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Links: The film at IMDB.

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Planet, Island . . . What's the Difference?

Forbidden Planet. Dir. Fred M. Wilcox. Perf. Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen. 1956. Warner Home Video, 2000.

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The Plots of The Tempest and Forbidden Planet are said to be amazingly similar in quite a large number of publications.

I suppose the similarities are mainly in characters.  The plot of this science fiction classic (and it really is a classic, influencing many films that followed it and entering pop culture in the same way that things like "Soylent Green" or "Resistance is futile" have) contains a lot more death and destruction and general mayhem than Shakespeare's play.

And it also contains Robby, the Robot!  Hurrah!  I'm sure you've seen this Caliban analogue.  He became the quintessential icon of sci. fi. robots, even making it into The Simpsons on at least two occasions.  I also suspect that Marvin (of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fame) owes a great deal to Robby.

Robby is interesting because he's something of the opposite—or, I suppose, the enlightened or Rousseau-inspired version—of Caliban.  

Anyway, without giving any spoilers, you also have analogues for Prospero and Miranda (they landed on this planet when the Miranda figure was an infant, and everyone died off but them) and a basic analogue for Frederick.  The Miranda figure, having met no human beings other than her father, is much taken with the flock of space travelers who arrive on their island planet.

But the plot . . . well, you should watch this fairly-good, fairly-not-t00-cheesy sci. fi. classic to see how much the writers owe to "The Swan of Altair."

Whoops!  I mean "Avon."  Swan of Avon.  Sorry.

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Links: Wikipedia entry on the film.

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Tempest: A Recontextualization of The Tempest

Tempest.  Dir. Paul Mazursky.  Perf. John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands, Susan Sarandon, Raul Julia, and  Molly Ringwald.  1982.   DVD.  Sony Pictures, 2007.

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Tempest (N.B.:  Not The Tempest—just Tempest) is better known than the selection from Extras, but it's still somewhat obscure, partly because it has only recently been released on DVD.

Kenneth S. Rothwell would classify this film as a recontextualization (rather than an adaptation) of a Shakespeare play.  It has a plot roughly like that of the play, but it does some remarkable things with it.

I'm fond of the figure of Caliban in this film (he goes by the name of Kalibanos).  He's one of the great successes in the play—he's funny and winning and sympathetic.  

He's all that in part because of the Prospero analogue (Phillip).  We get a lot of his backstory.  He's an architect who was very controlling and had something of a midlife crisis / breakdown.  He took his daughter to a nearly-uninhabited Greek island with a platonic girlfriend (the Ariel analogue) to recover.

Briefly, I'd like to present one wonderful exchange is between Kalibanos and Philip (the Prospero analogue).  Philip, jealous of the unwanted attention Kalibanos is paying Miranda, throws Kalibanos in the water.  Kalibanos shouts up out of the water:

Kalibanos:  I was boss before you show up.  Me—boss!

Philip:  You were ignorant, you superstitious bastard.  I taught you how to read.  I taught you how to count, fix the pump, read the stars . . . .

Kalibanos counters this with this line:

I show you the olive, and the fig, and the sweet water.

After some additional arguing, Philip knocks Kalibanos senseless with the oar. Then, somewhat reluctantly, he rescues him.

It's hard to tell exactly what Kalibanos says at that point. The subtitles have him say "You are a god, boss," but it sounds more like he's saying "You are God, boss."

In either case, Philip's reply is clear enough:

Philip: I'm no god. I'm a monkey, just like you.

Later, during the tempest itself, Kalibanos shouts to Philip:  "You are God, boss!"  And later still, when Philip seems unable to control the storm he seems to have summoned, Kalibanos has one more speech on the subject:

Kalibanos:  You not God.  Only God, God!

It's a delightful version of the tensions in the exchange betwwen Caliban and Prospero in I.ii, culminating in Caliban's speech:

You taught me language, and my profit on't 

Is . . . I know how to curse.  The red-plague rid you

For learning me your language!  (I.ii.363-65)

The most delightful scene is one in which Kalibanos dances with his goats.  It might be styled with this epigraph:

You taught me language, and my profit on't

Is . . . I know all the lyrics to "New York, New York!" 

Here's that delightful scene:

The film is one I'm glad to have seen in the theatres—on the big screen—even though I didn't like it at the time.  I'm now able to appreciate things about it that were completely mysterious to me at the time.  Yes, like the dancing goats.

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Links: The film at IMDB.

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Patrick Stewart as Prospero—A Fragment of The Tempest

“Episode 1.6.”  By Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.  Perf. Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Ashley Jensen, and Patrick Stewart.  Dir. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.  Extras.  Season 1, episode 6.  BBC / HBO.  25 August 2005.  DVD.  Universal Pictures Video, 2007.

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Welcome to what I've arbitrarily decided will be Tempest Week here at Bardfilm!

We'll kick it off with one that's seldom mentioned in Shakespeare and Film circles. I actually can't quite believe that I forgot this existed! If I hadn't been going through a folder looking for something else, I wouldn't have found this image.

It's from Extras, a show about . . . well, extras . . . on movie sets, and it's written by the team that gave us the BBC Office—so it's absolutely brilliant, though (or, perhaps, because) it does make the viewer exceedingly uncomfortable.

[Side Note: The American version of The Office—though my students love it and insist that I must watch every episode right now right this very second here I'll give you a thumb drive with the latest season on it—seems, for the most part, very dull. But (before I get a bunch of angry e-mails) I'll admit that I've only seen a few episodes of the first season—ones that reproduce (rather amateurishly—whoops! That's another batch of angry e-mails I'll get) specific portions of the BBC Office.]

Anyway, Patrick Stewart does a marvelous Prospero—the image above is taken from his "abjuring my art" speech in V.i.33-57—and then Patrick Stewart does a marvelous Patrick Stewart. The PS PS plays is unlike anything we'd imagine the real PS to be, and it's wonderful. Try it out.

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Links: The official site for Extras.

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"I'll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me." —Henry V

Orr, Wendy.   Nim's Island.  Illus. Kerry Millard.  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.

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Wendy Orr, author of Nim's Island (on which the movie Nim's Island was based) and other works has responded to a question I asked her about Shakespearean influences on her writing.

The reason for the query was some conceivable Tempest analogues in the film (for that entry, q.v.).  

Her response is extremely interesting, and it offers (1) valuable advice for readers of all kinds of literature and (2) further evidence for a "Shakespeare is Everywhere" Weltanschauung (which I have and which I hope you're beginning to share).

The valuable advice applies to Shakespeare, of course, but it also applies to large helpings of other literature:  Read It Aloud.

She mentions studying The Merchant of Venice several times (because she changed schools frequently).  I think that's also enormously valuable.  Occasionally, my students will tell me that they've read Hamlet in high school.  Occaionally, the implication is that they don't need to (or don't intend to) read it again.  But they couldn't be more wrong.  

Shakespeare, like all great literature, can bear multiple readings.  Indeed, readers will get different things out of it at different times in their lives.  As their lives change, their response to Shakespeare also changes.

Thanks, Wendy Orr, for responding to the query!  I look forward to reading more of your work.  Perhaps Shakespeare will make another unintentional (or, even better, intentional) appearance in your future novels!

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Links: Wendy Orr's Journal Blog.

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Random Saturday Morning Shakespeare Comic

Knight, Kevin. "Untitled."  N.d. N.p.

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I don't really know anything about the author of this comic. I just chanced upon it while searching Google images for pictures of Vietnam.  But I find it delightful.

It's something like "Hamlet as computer role-playing game." But, like a study of the play itself, the game lacks the vocabulary necessary to tidy up one of the most complex dramatic works in the history of human civilization!

It's also a very nice distillation of III.iii (the scene that makes its way into Last Action Hero, for which, q.v.).

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Links: Original URL.

A New Shakespeare-Related Novel

Winfield, Jess. My Name is Will: A Novel of Sex, Drugs, and Shakespeare. New York:  Twelve, 2008.

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The New York Times just reviewed—or, rather, its podcast just interviewed the author of—a new novel related to Shakespeare.

All I know about it I learned from the New York Times Book Review podcast. The author is one of the founding members of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, and the podcast and the review stress the novel's comic elements.

It also appears that a secretly-Catholic and State-persecuted Shakespeare is assumed.  As Shakespeare's Catholicism / Protestantism / Agnosticism / Atheism / Puritanism / et ceteraism has been at the forefront of the scholarly debate in recent years, it will be quite interesting to explore its implications in this novel. 

More when I get a copy and look into it!

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Links: The publishing house.  The review.

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A Return to Last Action Hero

Last Action Hero. Dir. John McTiernan. Perf. Arnold Schwarzenegger, F. Murray Abraham, Art Carney, and Austin O'Brien. 1993. DVD. Sony, 2007.

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While looking through a folder of scholarly articles on Shakespeare, I came across Eric S. Mallin's tremendous and seminal work on Shakespeare and Schwarzenegger.

Mallin, Eric S. “‘You Kilt My Foddah’; or Arnold, Prince of Denmark.” Shakespeare Quarterly 50 (1999): 127-51.

I keep meaning to require it as reading for my Shakespeare and Film class—and I'll certainly do so next time. The way the article reads deeply into the film and into Shakespeare is intriguing.

For example, Mallin points out the interest of the choice the teacher (played by Joan Plowright, Lawrence Olivier's widow) makes in showing a scene from Olivier's Hamlet.

The connection-by-marriage is obviously interesting. But, more interesting that that, is the teacher's decision to show the Claudius-at-prayer scene to support her thesis that Hamlet is "one of the first action heroes." Mallin says that "The weight of the wish in Danny's dream of Shakespeare and the appropriateness of Arnold as a bearer of this weight are of course that Hamlet become an agent of immediate, uncompromising revenge and destruction, not of mediation and equity" (130).

To follow Mallin, Hamlet works because its hero is an inaction hero. We know what action heroes might (and will) do, but we wonder constantly what Hamlet will do, how he'll do it, and (to an extent) why he doesn't.

That's an unformed thought, but I have a semester or two to work on it. In the meantime, enjoy the scene below!

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From Shakespeare's Wife to Shakespeare's Landlady

Nicholl, Charles. The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street. New York: Viking, 2007.

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[This post has been in the draft stage for nearly a year now. I suppose it's time to post it. First, of course, I need to write it. Hang on a second.]

Charles Nicholl's books is extraordinarily interesting, even though it deals with a very short period in Shakespeare life. Perhaps it's interesting because it deals with such a short period.

There isn't a ton of documentary evidence about Shakespeare—though there is more than most people suspect.  This book focuses on an intriguing period in Shakespeare's life (as if all periods in his life weren't intriguing) when he was called in to testify about an engagement agreement.

Speaking of engaging, this book is.  Engaging, I mean.  Read it.

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Links: Post on Shakespeare's Wife.

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What noise? [Doctor] Who calls on Hamlet?

Hamlet.  Dir. Gregory Doran.  Perf. David Tennant and Patrick Stewart.  Royal Shakespeare Company.   Stratford-on-Avon.  The Courtyard Theatre.  24 July–15 November 2008.

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An alert reader, having read the previous Doctor Who-related post, sent a link to this article in the London Telegraph.  The article reminds us that David Tennant, the current Doctor, is currently playing Hamlet in Stratford!

I've mentioned the stunning number of connections between Shakespeare and the long-running British science fiction series before.  But this seems to be a most remarkable production:  David Tennant and Patrick Stewart are both delightful actors, whether they're saving the world from alien attacks or saving Denmark from Norwegian interference. 

The production itself sounds well-constructed as well.  Mirrors are held up to nature as well as the audience, it seems.

A final note:  RSC, you could probably make a fortune if you were to release a DVD of this stage production.  So please do so!

Also, thanks to Dad, the alert reader in question.

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Alternate titles for the post (out of several hundred possibilities):

1. Who is't that can inform me?
2. Who hath relieved you?
3. Who would fardels bear . . . 
4. Who's there?  [The first line of the play!]

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Links: London Telegraph Aricle.

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Bonus Photos!

1.  David Tennant as Hamlet.  I wonder who plays Yorick's skull.

2.  Hamlet holding up a mirror to nature.  Or a silver tray.  Same difference.

3.  Bonus bonus photo:  Patrick Stewart as the King!  (He also plays the ghost of Hamlet's father).

Brief but Brilliant—Another Shakespeare Reference in Doctor Who

“The Unquiet Dead.” By Mark Gatiss.   Perf. Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, and Simon Callow.  Dir. Euros Lyn. Doctor Who.  Season 1, episode 3 (New Series).   BBC Wales. 9 April 2005.   DVD.  BBC Warner, 2007.

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Early in the first season of the new series of Doctor Who, the Doctor and his companion travel to Dickensian London, where they mean the man himself. Charles Dickens, I mean.

The show presents us with a wonderful moment where Dickens, confused and bewildered, asks, "What the Shakespeare is going on?"

It's lovely for many reasons. One of them is that it does what the show itself does. It twists the basic chronology of Earth history. It presumes that confused and bewildered people will always say "What the [best writer prior to that time]?" when faced with difficulty. People in the future might be saying "What the Vonnegut is going on?"

Actually, the phrase "What the dickens?" has been around for a long time. In fact, that's another reason it's lovely. Shakespeare himself uses the phrase in Merry Wives of Windsor:

I cannot tell what the dickens his name is . . . . (III.ii)

Perhaps, in a future Doctor Who, we'll meet Shakespeare again—only to hear him say, "What the Chaucer is happening here?"

Notes:  

1. I was paying the bills this morning with the show on more-or-less in the background.  I wasn't wasting time.  I can do two things at once.
2. I chose Vonnegut over your favorite author because of the flow of the phrase rather than belief in his genius.  "What the Woolf" (for Virginia Woolf) or "What the Berry?" (for Wendell Berry) or  just didn't have the right ring.  "What the Russell T. Davies?" sounds nice (and has the woodnotes wild of Whales warbling right with it), but it's a bit too lengthy.

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First and Second Impressions on the GRSF's Taming

The Taming of the Shrew.  Dir. Alec Wild.  Perf. Christopher Gerson, Tarah Flanagan, Jonathan Gillard Daly, Chris Hirsch, Zachary Michael Fine, Doug Scholz-Carlson, Carla Noack, Chris Mixon, Evan Fuller, Bob Fairbrook, Andrew Carlson, Brian David Frederick, Donte Fitzgerald, David Rudi Utter, and Nicole Rodenburg. Great River Shakespeare Festival. Winona, Minnesota. 2008.

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First Impression: Brilliant.

Second Impression: Also Brilliant.

The Great River Shakespeare Festival does Shakespeare well.  Their productions are personal, intimate, clever, and thought-provoking without being weird or badly-acted.

They also do enough Shakespeare—I only wish I had also been able to see their Merchant of Venice and the Pericles put on by the Apprentice Project. Next year, I intend to see everything they offer (and I'd recommend that you do the same).

I also regret not being able to see the show earlier in the run.  The show has now closed, so I'm unable to promote the 2008 season with the enthusiasm it deserves (though I can write about it enthusiastically and promote the 2009 season with great expectations).

The production gave us a Shrew of the broadest farce. The set contained metal-framed pillars that the actors could climb to observe the action—and also to play any one of a huge number of percussion instruments. Slide whistles, drums, and clackers accompanied the slapstick action.

I think it was a good choice for this play. The audience was persuaded from the start that nothing of any real consequence was going to take place in the world of the play. Thus, Katherine's striking Petruchio (and her re-striking him on his line "I'll swear I'll cuff you if you strike again," against which he had no strong response) was accompanied with sound effects. The effect of the effects was to lessen the repercussions of the physical violence for which the play calls.

The characters, after all, are from the Commedia delle'arte.  But, in Shakespeare, even stock characters like the Pantaloon seldom remain two-dimensional.  This production gave us that, too.

Katherine, who was not very often very shrewish, effectively demonstrated that the shrew in her was (mostly) a public persona.

Petruchio, who seemed to find his own actions as distasteful as a member of a modern audience might, was grasping at straws and playing it by ear through most of the play.  It was an intriguing interpretation.

In a future post, I'd like to comment more fully on these very effective moments in the play:

• Clearing the stage for Kate and Petruchio's first encounter
  
• Using sound effects—with both percussion and voice
• Foregrounding the idea of playing games
• Having Petruchio address the audience directly
  

In the meantime, set aside June and July of 2009 so you won't miss a moment of the glory that is The Great River Shakespeare Festival!

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Links: The Festival's Cool Website.

Chris Gerson as Petruchio

The Taming of the Shrew. Dir. Alec Wild. Perf. Christopher Gerson, Jonathan Gillard Daly, Chris Hirsch and Nicole Rodenburg. Great River Shakespeare Festival. Winona, Minnesota. 2008.

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We're driving down to Winona today to see Chris Gerson in The Taming of the Shrew. The festival is always remarkable, and I'll report on the production in the next few days.

Meanwhile, head to the festival site for some very cool images and videos related to this season . . . and mark your calendars for next season!

Also, here are two cool pictures of Gerson—one from the current production and one from As You Like It a few years back.

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Links: The Festival's Cool Website.

Jack Benny and the Sympathetic Shylock

To Be or Not to Be. Dir. Ernst Lubitsch. Perf. Jack Benny, Carole Lombard, Robert Stack, and Felix Bressart. 1942. DVD. Warner Home Video, 2005.

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Jack Benny is the greatest radio comedian the world has ever seen. As a movie or television actor—if you get the right movie—he's not terrible. Not great. But also not terrible.

In terms of Shakespeare and film, I very much enjoy his 1942 To Be or Not to Be (later remade by Mel Brooks in 1983). In the scene below, Benny and his friends (all actors in a Polish theatre—good guys, in other words) have donned Nazi uniforms to create a diversion to help their friends escape from the real Nazis while the real Hitler (the actor playing Hitler here is actually an actor playing an actor playing Hitler) watches a performance from a box on the other side of that wall.

One point to be made from the speech from Merchant of Venice here is that it's given the utmost sympathy. Whatever you may feel about Shylock, it's almost impossible for the "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech to be delivered without sympathy.

Another point is that the word "Jew is excerpted from the speech. It seems to be a speech about Poles and not about Jews. But the Jewish resonance is still there. Though the characters speaks of Poland, earlier in the film, we learn that he is Jewish. [When he wants to accuse a fellow actor of hamming it up, he says, "What you are I wouldn't eat." Lovely economy of form, that.]

That, itself, may serve as an emblem of WWII in 1942. What the world sees is the plight of the Poles; under that is the plight of the Jews.

Take a look at the clip; then try the whole film out at your local (or, if you use Netflix, not-so-local) video rental store or library.

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Links: The film in question.  

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