Tag: Shakespeare

Much Ado About Nothing

Even William Shakespeare can’t resist the Joss Whedon touch.

Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” says it all in the title. It’s a big fuss of a love story and comedy made out of little glissandos and misunderstandings, and to this day it stings with sexual energy and coy dialogue.

Some might say that a person like Joss Whedon would be primed to take up Shakespeare’s throne, as if the man behind “Serenity,” “The Avengers” and a number of other cult TV shows could do no wrong. His writing too is often sharp, eloquent and filled with double meaning.

But what I’ve always disliked about Whedon is the sense of smugness that pervades so many of his characters, relying on witty smarm to land each joke and each turn of phrase.

“Much Ado About Nothing” is Whedon’s passion project, shot in a matter of days with his team of regulars in-between production on “The Avengers,” and even Shakespeare cannot withstand the Whedon touch. Perhaps some would call this a match made in heaven, but the film has the snooty air of an inconsequential lark, even if the play is about nothing. Continue reading “Much Ado About Nothing”

Rapid Response: Hamlet (1948)

Let’s face it; you don’t come to me for an analysis of Shakespeare, so I won’t bother. What I can say is how terrific Laurence Olivier’s “Hamlet” is, not because it’s a faithful adaptation (it’s not) of the most enduring play ever written, or even because Olivier is the 20th Century’s best figure head of the classical actor, but because it set the stage for how to adapt the Bard to the screen. It values sumptuous visuals and symbolic set dressing to establish moods and themes over a strict retelling of the play, acknowledging full well it can’t get all of Shakespeare’s prose into the screenplay.

The result is a film that borrows a haunting aesthetic from both “Citizen Kane” and Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast.” Desmond Dickinson’s deep focus cinematography coupled with the foggy set dressing in front of black infinity backdrops gives “Hamlet” a ghastly effect that emboldens the story’s more fantastical and spiritual themes. I love the labyrinth of a castle Hamlet and Horatio stand atop during the film’s first act. It’s a surreal set that doesn’t make spatial sense, and it makes the appearance of the ghost of Hamlet’s father all the creepier. When he appears, he’s framed in between two spears that make it look like he’s entering through Heaven’s Gate. Olivier uses the fog and backdrop to isolate Hamlet (see: him carrying his sword downward approaching the phantom) in truly iconic ways.

“Hamlet” has minimal editing and a surplus of wide shots, but the film never looks “stagy.” The camera acts as its own character on stage, approaching others and backing away as a part of the conversation and providing Olivier with room to breathe when his voice is really booming. It’s an active surveyor, often providing more context than the actors themselves. Look at one shot where Ophelia has just finished talking to Polonious. Out of the corner of her eye, she spies Hamlet sitting forlornly in a chair at the far end of the corridor, and we get his reaction shot in return. Both perspectives indicate visually what is going through these characters’ heads in a way that theatrical staging could not.

But the film won Best Picture where Olivier’s previous “Henry IV” did not because Olivier himself provides such fire in the role of Hamlet. They say playing is the ultimate actor’s challenge because it requires so much complexity and range, and Olivier is quiet and forlorn without losing his thunderous tone, most of all during the scene where he kills Polonious. Olivier was already a gigantic stage legend well before he attempted “Hamlet” or “Henry IV” on film, and he even had a lucrative career in Hollywood, both in “Wuthering Heights” and “Rebecca.” But this is the role that defines him as an actor. He’s the only actor to win an Oscar for a Shakespearean role, and he deserves it.

Future filmmakers like Kenneth Branagh would eventually tackle “Hamlet” in full, and others would adapt the story to modernity in ways that are so much more daring, but Olivier’s “Hamlet” set the stage for them all.

Throne of Blood (1957)

You could do a thesis studying Lady Washizu’s eyes in Akira Kurosawa’s underrated masterpiece “Throne of Blood.” Isuzu Yamada is brilliant as the feudal Japan equivalent of Lady Macbeth, at once appearing sinister and manipulative just in the way she controls her body’s stillness and gaze into nothingness. And when you realize she’s capable of overcoming the powerhouse acting of even Toshiro Mifune, you realize how eerily wonderful this entire film is.

“Throne of Blood” is possibly the best Shakespearean adaptation ever made, rivaled only by Kurosawa’s own “Ran,” which adapted “King Lear” rather than “Macbeth.” It’s a loose retelling that takes liberties with the story and especially the language, but Kurosawa’s interest lies not in making a poetic character drama but a tight, haunting genre picture that finds poetry in its cinematography.

Lady Washizu never dances around the kill or be killed paradox running through “Macbeth,” and her character rapidly develops as someone capable of eating away at every inhibition we carry. What Mifune’s character Washizu is left with is his own hubris and apprehensions, all compiling to build toward his tragic (and awesome) death.

Despite Shakespeare’s powerful tragedy, the story is almost a side factor to Kurosawa’s enchanting mash-up of Japanese Noh Theater and Western movie imagery.

Interior shots are particularly theatrical, and the camera beacons and teases the audience and the characters by starkly isolating them to the point of vulnerability. The framing is impeccable in the dinner scene in which Washizu awaits his guest of honor and rival Miki (Akira Kubo), and there’s no question from Kurosawa’s off-kilter camera how crazed and engrossing the lengthy, uncomfortable moment is.

As for the exteriors, Mifune is a commanding presence unlike any actor Japanese or American, and yet Kurosawa is capable of dwarfing him with thunderous surroundings, eerily luminous lighting amidst forestry and the Godlike effervescence of the film’s evil spirit. Kurosawa captures fog in his shots like few directors, and in smaller scope scenes he controls it even further to skillfully mask the studio space as we venture into the evil spirit’s ghastly hollow.

But above all else, “Throne of Blood” is famous for its unbelievable finale. An over-confident Washizu barks at his men to enter into a losing battle, and his archers betray him in a hellfire of arrows. The scene is done with real arrows and without special effects, and it has the power of engulfing us in madness as we watch. It’s also followed by one of the best movie deaths ever as a defeated Washizu staggers aimlessly with an arrow jutting from his throat.

How “Throne of Blood” could be little seen or underrated amongst Kurosawa’s oeuvre is beyond me. He made it in 1957 shortly after his triple play of “Rashomon,” “Ikiru” and “Seven Samurai” and didn’t exactly break new ground in storytelling or action direction the way he did in those films. But as a cinematic masterstroke first and Shakespearean adaptation second, it deserves a place amongst Kurosawa’s finest.