The Tempest

Julie Taymor returns to Shakespeare, 10 years after her Titus, this time with the Bard’s final work. Whilst there is no disputing Taymor’s flair for visualization whether she does justice to the play, or even delivers a satisfying film, is another matter.  For me because of its archaicism, one always needs to pay close attention to the utterance of Shakespeare's dialogue, both its actual content and its rhythms and in this respect one needs to restrain the cinematic in filming his work. Taymor with her bold visualizations and trans-Atlantic casting hardly does this.

That she modernizes the play, changing the original Prospero, the one-time Duke of Milan exiled to a barren island, to Prospera (Helen Mirren) as a sorceress who now occupies it with her daughter, Miranda (Felicity Jones) and the island’s only inhabitant Caliban (Djimon Hounsou), re-imagined as an African, is no problem but from the get-go, which gives us the titular tempest at sea, Shakespeare’s language is difficult to lay hold of and the film becomes somewhat of a shapeless sprawl.  The diverse cast includes David Strathairn, Alan Cumming (a carry-over from Titus) Chris Cooper, Alfred Molina, Ben Wishaw and a very distracting Russell Brand and whilst this is perhaps quirkily appealing on one level, one can’t help but wish that RSTC-trained thesps had been used instead.

 

Want something different?