Julie Taymor's "The Tempest"

[jack_ryder]

Get this out on DVD so you can just watch Helen Mirren as Prospera, Chris Cooper as Antonio. David Strathairn as Alonso, Alan Cumming as Sebastian and Tom Conti as Gonzalo. Whilst Alfred Molina gives a great performance as Stephano, he does it in the company of Russell Brand's Trinculo.

Reeve Carney as Ferdinand is completely out of his depth - it's like he won some kind of competition in drama school.

The CGI (mainly Ben Wishaw's Ariel - which has reasonable performance under the pixels) is sometimes good, sometimes risible and Taymor cannot prevent herself from shouting her themes from the rooftops BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT YOU DO WITH ART AIMED AT AMERICAN AUDIENCES!

If Mirren's performance wasn't so good, I'd say it's not worth seeing (unless you're curious, of course.) But Mirren is excellent, her Prospera survives being drowned out by Taymor's directorial sound and fury, so this adaptation is not entirely missable.

But it wasn't as good as the first Tempest I'd seen with a female Prospero.

Comments

[dfordoom.livejournal.com]

There are two non-Shakespearian adaptations of "The Tempest" that I know
of - "Forbidden Planet" and Paul Mazursky's update "Tempest (where the
Prospero character is an architect played by John Cassavetes.)

I adore Forbidden Planet, but then radical reinterpretations of Shakespeare were less of a tired concept in 1956.

Does Kurosawa' s Throne of Blood count, or would you class it as more straight adaptation?

[jack-ryder.livejournal.com]

Does Kurosawa' s Throne of Blood count, or would you class it as more straight adaptation?

I think it's a much more straight adaptation than Ran of King Lear (which changed the daughters to sons.)