The Tempest (2010)

Finally, finally, a DVD edition of The Tempest, which was released in late 2010, has been issued. It was the last Oscar-nominated film from that year I hadn't seen (it was nominated for Best Costumes). I can't say too much about the costumes, by Sandy Powell, There are so many period film released in a year that it's beyond me which ones are better than others, costume-wise, because of I'm not a costume guy.

I am a Shakespeare guy, though, so this was a must-see no matter the costumes. As I wrote about a stage production some years ago, The Tempest is unique among the Bard's plays for being presumably his last play, it's unity of time, place and action, and touching on the new world. Julie Taymor's adaptation, which is lean and (mostly) without the kind of visual gimmickry that Taymor's work is known for, has decidedly an emphasis on the new world.

She has done two things that might annoy the purist: she has cast a woman, Helen Mirren, as Prospero, here called Prospera, which was written as a male character. I have seen this done before, and it can be accomplished with very little textual adjustment, and somehow makes a world of sense, increasing the bond between parent and child, and the injustice she received at the hands of her brother. Secondly, Taymor has cast an African man, Djimon Hounsou, as Caliban, which fits the modern notion of him representing the oppressed indigenous population of the new world. As I noted in my earlier posting, critics such as Harold Bloom are dismayed at this interpretation--by 1611, when Shakespeare wrote The Tempest, the slave trade wasn't that long in existing, nor, I imagine, was there any sense of exploitation of native peoples.

Yet there is much talk of freedom in The Tempest. Prospera, exiled with her baby daughter by her scheming brother, who took over the Duchy of Milan from her, was marooned on an island. She honed her craft in magic, becoming powerful. She has two slaves on the island--Caliban, the deformed offspring of a witch, and a spirit Ariel, whom she rescues from imprisonment. Both want their freedom keenly, but Ariel works for his, while Caliban conspires to kill her. This certainly seems ready-made for an application to colonialism, whether is historically correct or not.

As for the adaptation, I found it excellent. Mirren, a terrific actress, holds the film together magnificently. The shipwrecked are represented by an eclectic group of American and British actors, some Taymor regulars. As Antonio, Chris Cooper; as Sebastian, Alan Cumming; as Gonzalo, Tom Conti; and as the King of Naples, David Straithairn. For comic relief there is Alfred Molina as the drunkard Stephano, who teams with Caliban and imagines himself kind of the island. The gutsiest casting is Russell Brand as the clown Trinculo, and it's damn near perfect casting. Brand's persona fits the role well, and if he's not as golden-throated as John Gielgud, well, the role doesn't call for it.

Ben Whishaw, looking like David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust days, is Ariel, and it's here where Taymor uses her palette of visual effects. I don't think Whishaw is actually in any of the shots he appears in--it's all superimposed. His only colleague may have been a green screen. But it all makes perfect sense.

As the young lovers, Felicity Jones, my new crush object, makes a winsome Miranda, while Reeve Carney makes a matinee idol Ferdinand (I see, by simple Googling, that his connection to Taymor is that he stars as Spider-Man in the Broadway musical).

Filmed in Hawaii, The Tempest captures the beauty and wildness of an island setting, but Taymor never allows the language to play second fiddle. This play has some of Shakespeare's most beautiful, heart-aching lines; perhaps best remembered are these:

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.