Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream
Twelfth Night (1996)
This is a worthy film adaptation of one of Shakespeare's best comedies. It's beautifully shot, and, more importantly, beautifully acted. The great Ben Kingsley steals the show as Feste, the professional jester or "Fool," who, like most Shakespearean fools, is the most perceptive and aware character of the ensemble. Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia and Nigel Hawthorne as Malvolio also are perfect for their roles, and lesser-known (but widely recognized) character actors also stand out in the roles of Viola/Cesario, Sebastian, Maria, Duke Orsino, and Sir Toby Belch. The music (both the background music and the song numbers) adds more to it than I thought possible. Other than being a bit overlong and lacking momentum in parts, it's a very solid production.
*side note: Twelfth Night takes place in Illyria, which is supposed to be an exotic faraway place. In real life, the area that was ancient Illyria is roughly modern-day Albania, Montenegro, and Croatia. It's funny to think about how, in Shakespeare's time, that probably seemed immeasurably distant and mysterious.
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)
On the plus side, this version of the oft-produced comedy looks really, really good. Twelfth Night, as I said, was beautifully shot, but this one looks absolutely sensational. The forest looks just like the kind of forest everyone images when they read about the magical happenings of the play, and the shift in setting to Italy is a believable one. All of the costumes and effects look pitch perfect. The atmosphere could not be better.
Unfortunately, however, the acting does not live up to its all star billing. The only actors who turn in top-notch performances are Stanley Tucci as Puck and Kevin Kline as Bottom. Other high quality people such as Rupert Everett, Sophie Marceau, Sam Rockwell, and Christian Bale (as much as I scorn Newsies, I admit he's turned into a semi-respectable actor) seem to have gone flat, and I suspect the problem was bad direction. Furthermore, casting Hollywood headliners Calista Flockhart and Michelle Pfieffer (woefully miscast as Titania) was almost as disastrous as Keanu Reeves's train wreck in Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing.
The pathetic thing is that most of these characters are, by design, shallow and one-dimensional to begin with, and playing them shouldn't be that hard. The whole point of A Midsummer Night's Dream (as is apparent from the title itself) is that it's a fanciful little adventure that turns into fairy dust when the night is over. That's why it's so popular for middle-school productions; it's easy to perform because there's great comedy and no deep acting. Nobody has to memorize and interpret Hamlet soliloquies, for example. And yet, the director of this movie still manages to strike out, even with such a talented cast and such easy material.
One particularly vexing point was the whole subplot introduced with Bottom's wife, even though there is no such character in the play. Kevin Kline put a fresh, unique spin on the character that was all his own, but the writers apparently thought they could put their own spin on the play itself. This was an unfortunate call. Also, the mud-wrestling scene at the end was beyond gratuitous. Overall, I would say that this movie still is worth getting for the beautiful scenery, the intermittent signs that a great cast is in the house, and also that it's usually sold for only about $7.
This is a worthy film adaptation of one of Shakespeare's best comedies. It's beautifully shot, and, more importantly, beautifully acted. The great Ben Kingsley steals the show as Feste, the professional jester or "Fool," who, like most Shakespearean fools, is the most perceptive and aware character of the ensemble. Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia and Nigel Hawthorne as Malvolio also are perfect for their roles, and lesser-known (but widely recognized) character actors also stand out in the roles of Viola/Cesario, Sebastian, Maria, Duke Orsino, and Sir Toby Belch. The music (both the background music and the song numbers) adds more to it than I thought possible. Other than being a bit overlong and lacking momentum in parts, it's a very solid production.
*side note: Twelfth Night takes place in Illyria, which is supposed to be an exotic faraway place. In real life, the area that was ancient Illyria is roughly modern-day Albania, Montenegro, and Croatia. It's funny to think about how, in Shakespeare's time, that probably seemed immeasurably distant and mysterious.
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)
On the plus side, this version of the oft-produced comedy looks really, really good. Twelfth Night, as I said, was beautifully shot, but this one looks absolutely sensational. The forest looks just like the kind of forest everyone images when they read about the magical happenings of the play, and the shift in setting to Italy is a believable one. All of the costumes and effects look pitch perfect. The atmosphere could not be better.
Unfortunately, however, the acting does not live up to its all star billing. The only actors who turn in top-notch performances are Stanley Tucci as Puck and Kevin Kline as Bottom. Other high quality people such as Rupert Everett, Sophie Marceau, Sam Rockwell, and Christian Bale (as much as I scorn Newsies, I admit he's turned into a semi-respectable actor) seem to have gone flat, and I suspect the problem was bad direction. Furthermore, casting Hollywood headliners Calista Flockhart and Michelle Pfieffer (woefully miscast as Titania) was almost as disastrous as Keanu Reeves's train wreck in Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing.
The pathetic thing is that most of these characters are, by design, shallow and one-dimensional to begin with, and playing them shouldn't be that hard. The whole point of A Midsummer Night's Dream (as is apparent from the title itself) is that it's a fanciful little adventure that turns into fairy dust when the night is over. That's why it's so popular for middle-school productions; it's easy to perform because there's great comedy and no deep acting. Nobody has to memorize and interpret Hamlet soliloquies, for example. And yet, the director of this movie still manages to strike out, even with such a talented cast and such easy material.
One particularly vexing point was the whole subplot introduced with Bottom's wife, even though there is no such character in the play. Kevin Kline put a fresh, unique spin on the character that was all his own, but the writers apparently thought they could put their own spin on the play itself. This was an unfortunate call. Also, the mud-wrestling scene at the end was beyond gratuitous. Overall, I would say that this movie still is worth getting for the beautiful scenery, the intermittent signs that a great cast is in the house, and also that it's usually sold for only about $7.