Coriolanus

Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare's canon that isn't performed much. I saw a thrilling production at the Public Theater starring Christopher Walken, but other than that, bupkus. Therefore Ralph Fiennes' 2011 film of the play is an excellent reminder that it is an overlooked masterpiece.

Fiennes, who hasn't directed a film since, does a smashing job. It is a modern-dress adaptation, which are always dicey, but given that the play is about violence and politics, which are eternal subjects, it works.

Simply put, Caius Martius is a Roman general who, after leading a great victory, is pushed into politics. He screws up royally, showing his contempt for the common people, and is exiled. He comes back with his sworn enemy to destroy Rome, but his mother talks him out of it. His former enemy thinks this is a betrayal and kills him. So it could be a warning against generals getting into politics, or listening to your mother.

The setting is everywhere and nowhere, as it is pointedly set in "a place called Rome." The film was shot in Serbia and Montenegro, and features many Balkan actors, so to think of it as being set there wouldn't hurt. Fiennes, as he should, plays Martius (who earns the cognomen Coriolanus after winning a great battle at Corioli) as a bullet-headed warrior who knows nothing except battle. He learned this from his mother, Volumnia (Vanessa Redgrave), who says:

 "Had I a dozen sons, each in my love alike and none less dear than thine and my good Coriolanus, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action." She also remarks that it's good that he was wounded, because he can show the people his scars.

But a senator, Brian Cox, pushes him into politics, where Fiennes is completely out of his element. Fiennes uses the media of today, such as cable news roundtables, to show his rise and fall. Shakespeare has said to have prefigured many things, but Fox News wasn't one of them, until now.

The acting here is top notch. In addition to Fiennes, Redgrave is great as Volumnia. Gerard Butler plays Aufidius, Fiennes' eternal enemy and sometime ally. Coriolanus says of him, "he is a lion I am proud to hunt." Jessica Chastain plays his dutiful wife Virgilia.

Fiennes' makes many great choices, such as having one of Coriolanus' outbursts filmed by a smart phone (of course it will go viral). There are a lot of great lines in this play, such as Cox saying, "there is no more mercy in him than milk in a male tiger," or "it is no little thing to make mine eyes to sweat compassion," and Fiennes, by judicious pruning (the film only runs two hours, short for Shakespeare) makes these lines pop. It is very easy to follow what's going on.

So, Ralph, direct another movie, will you?