Favorite Shakespeare and Shakespeare-inspired films

[Steve Minkin]

Richard II -- 2014 RSC production at Stratford, David Tennant.

Magnificent! So good I'm at a loss for words. Almost raises this underrated play to the level of the next three, the heart of the Henriad. I liked this film so much I've bought it (iTunes) and look forward to repeated watchings. Highest recommendation.

[Steve Minkin]

HENRY IV, part 1, ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY, 2014, DVD of the staged play in performance.

This was an enjoyable and serviceable staging that I can't get overly enthusiastic about. Anthony Sher plays a very likable, almost innocent Falstaff, which works better than I would have expected but at the expense of the depth and, dare I say, weight that the character contains. The king was played angry, and bellowed rather than spoke, a dreadful interpretation.. Prince Hal and Hotspur were just okay, I never lost the sense that they were actors; but they partially redeemed themselves with a particularly brilliantly staged climactic fight scene in the last act – both actors were acrobatic, graceful, and convincing, a wonderful little set-piece. Some of the secondary characters enjoyed first-rate interpretations, in particular Worcester, Mistress Quickly, and Glendower.

One thing I did notice for the first time in this production was what may be the only time in the plays the prince shows any fondness for Falstaff, which he then stifles at once. In the last act, as he stands over what he believes to be Falstaff's dead body, Hal says:
" . . .Poor Jack, farewell!
I could have better spared a better man"
But then he immediately reins it in:
"O, I should have a heavy miss of thee,
If I were much in love with vanity!
Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,
Though many dearer, in this bloody fray.",

[Steve Minkin]

Watched the BBC's Hollow Crown production of 1HIV last night, iTunes has it, a breezy watch. Jeremy Irons as King Henry IV, Simon Russell Beale as Falstaff and Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal, all of them are terrific, and so is the rest of the cast. The street and tavern scenes are beautifully filmed, sensuously evocative of Merrie Olde England. Might be the film I'd recommend to a newbie to the play, for a first look.

Unfortunately, so much is cut from the play I felt a litte cheated. I didn't much mind the change of sequencing of scenes and passages, or even transplanting Falstaff's great speech about the salutary effects of strong drink from Part 2 into Part 1. But some of the play's signature lines are missing and some of the key passages are cut to ribbons, so I felt a bit as though I'd seen a Reader's Digest Condensed Book version of the play. Another thirty minutes (it ran two hours) and they'd have had a great film version!

[Steve Minkin]

THE HOLLOW CROWN -- HENRY IV, PART 2 (2012)

Tremendous, and I've modified my opinion about the loss of text in this and the previous play for reasons I go into on the Shakespeare thread. Falstaff's lines and scenes are radically cut, in service of highlighting the historical vectors. The tavern and country life scenes are so vividly staged that it partially makes up for the loss of text in those sections. The performances of Jeremey Irons (Henry IV), Simon Russell Beale (Falstaff) and Tom Hiddleston (Henry V) are all powerful and moving. The climactic scenes between the father and son kings are as good as I've seen. " . . . commit/ The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?" (IV, iii)

[Steve Minkin]

A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) – Directed by Michael Hoffman, with Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Stanley Tucci, Calista Flockhart. The comedy is set in late 19th century Tuscany, bicycles abound, and the film starts off with great promise by showing, in turn, the three worlds of the play in arrestingly imaginative visuals – the court (a nice mix of stateliness and bluntness), the rude mechanicals (operatic street scenes), and the fairy kingdom (eye-grabbing effects, great first impression).

Regrettably, it's all downhill after that, notwithstanding some built-in highlights ("Reason and love keep little company nowadays.") Kevin Kline plays a ham and hams it up, and that's how to play Bottom, and he gives the most notable performance in the film even though I wasn't all that taken with it. Anna Friel as Hermia and Dominic West as Lysander give the best performances in the film – and if your standout actors in The Dream are two of the lovers, you're in trouble. With the exception of Friel and West, the actors generally lacked chemistry with each other, the visual effects grow tired, and the production is plagued with several awkward spots where a scene seems to come to a dazed stop.

There is some unique stuff here, and it's worth seeing at least once; but it's too flawed to be a memorable film.

[Steve Minkin]

Romeo + Juliet (1996) – Directed by Baz Luhrmann, with Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, John Leguizamo, Harold Perrineau. Haven't seen this one since seeing it in first run, and was too bewildered at the radical resetting of the tragedy to render a judgment about the film at the time. Luhrmann puts the star-crossed lovers in a modern urban gang environment, music by Radiohead, Butthole Surfers, covers of Prince, etc.

I had no trouble at all getting into it this time. I LOVE this film, count it among the very best of the modern resettings (along with Ian McKellen's Richard III in a fascist England and Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing in upscale Los Angeles).

The chemistry that was so sorely missing in The Dream (above) is fully ignited in this film, some stunning visuals when the two leads meet, softened by the waters of the aquarium and the swimming pool. Pete Postlethwaite as Friar Lawrence and Miriam Margolyes as Juliet's nurse are outstanding in those two plum supporting roles. Some classic lines are left out ("'tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church-door, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve."), Perrineau's Mercutio-in-drag is as wild as this wild role gets, and (in a rare but not unique directorial decision) Romeo realizes Juliet is alive just before he dies – and it all fits together beautifully.

[Steve Minkin]

OTHELLO (1995) – directed by Oliver Parker. Lawrence Fishburne and Kenneth Branagh.

With the sole exception of Hamlet, Iago is the most intelligent of Shakespeare's major characters. Until he is undone by his wife late in Act V, he controls the action of Othello, manipulating all the characters with his manic villainy, which produces three displays of public violence (Acts I, II, & V) and four deaths (Act V). Kenneth Branagh, in this production, offers an Iago that succeeds in capturing the man's mean-spiritedness, his keen intellect, his endearing persona of an earnest and honorable underling, and his contempt for everyone else. Branagh succeeds in delivering one of the greatest performances of the Bard on film, making this film indispensible.

Lawrence Fishburne's Othello and Irene Jacob's Desdamona are quite good, but Branagh's inspired performance makes one wish they could have taken it to the next level.

Although much of the play is dialogue (Othello + Iago make up over 55% of the plays lines) the film makes good use of Mediterranean scenery, period weaponry and medieval streets and buildings to bring the settings (Venice and Cyprus) and era to life. The supporting Shakespearean actors who render (Iago's dupe) Rodrigo, the Venetian emissary (Ludovico), and Iago's wife (Emilia, who in the end undoes him) all provide stellar performances in their limited roles and keep the film in the A-list.

This is one of the best of Shakespeare on film, and Branagh's Iago is one for the ages. Not to be missed.