Julie Taymor's THE TEMPEST

Going into this film, I knew I wasn’t likely to be offended by any of Taymor’s choices. I don’t really like this play, so it isn’t holy and untouchable to me. It’s not a great play. I have a theory that its reputation arose solely based on the incorrect identification of it as Shakespeare’s last play. His farewell to the stage. We know now, of course, that he worked on plays after The Tempest. I think if we had always known that, The Tempest would never had reached the status as one of his great works. Because it’s just not that good. So that’s my prejudice going into this work.

The movie opens with a shot of a sandcastle. It begins to rain and the sandcastle is washed away. As it deteriorates, the camera pulls back and we see that the sandcastle is in the hands of Miranda (Felicity Jones). The rain is coming from a maelstrom at sea that we can see devouring a ship. Miranda begins to run.

Miranda runs until she finds her mother, Prospera (yes, that would be Prospero in Shakespeare’s original text). Prospera (Helen Mirren) is standing on a cliff, arms raised, staff outstretched, screaming. She is controlling the storm. Shakespeare’s text is a bit ambiguous on how much power Prospero has versus how much Ariel has to do for him. Taymor’s version clearly shows Prospera as a sorceress. She even spells Miranda to sleep with a very pointed “I know thou canst not choose” rather than simply remarking on Miranda’s weariness.

Making Prospero a woman is not a new choice. It’s been done before. It works well with the coexisting malevolence and softness that Shakespeare has written into the character. Making her a mother gives a tender feeling to the way Prospera brings Miranda and Ferdinand together. But making the character a woman also adds to her unpleasantness. For when Prospera threatens Ariel by recounting how she rescued him from the evil witch Sycorax, you can’t help but feel that Prospera is a little like Sycorax herself. Consider the description of the witch: “This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child, / And here was left by the sailors.” Sound like anyone else we know?

Prospero has been a woman before. It’s a choice that has worked before. So I’m not really sure why Taymor feels the need to invent text to explain the choice. Instead of just sticking with the story and changing pronouns, Taymor writes a new monologue for Prospera – one that explains that she was married to the Duke and it was when he died that all her problems began. This is the issue where the Shakespeare purist in me comes out. It seems weird then that her brother can take over the dukedom, since if she married the Duke, her brother is of no blood relation. Is Taymor suggesting the usurping has more to do with the fact that they didn’t want a woman in charge than it does with Antonio being power-hungry? If so, she doesn’t make this clear.

The second choice to talk about is the casting of black actor Djimon Hounsou as Caliban. Again, not a new choice, but one that absolutely is in line with the text and connects the character to a modern audience. Embracing a post-colonial interpretation drives the point in the text home. Prospera has taken the land from Caliban, usurped his place, just as her brother usurped hers. It makes us uncomfortable to hear the white Prospera refer to Caliban as “slave;” so too does the accusation that the black Caliban has attempted to rape the white Mirada. And it should make us uncomfortable. Prospero/a should not be a character of straightforward likeability and goodness. S/he should have lost part of his/her humanity while on that island. The casting of a black actor, or, say, an American Indian actor, helps make this clear to us given our history of oppressing. Plenty has already been written about post-colonialism and The Tempest, so I'll just leave it at that.

For the most part the acting is very strong. There’s an absolutely lovely moment between Ariel and Propera when she says “I shall miss you; But yet you shall have freedom.” The beauty of Shakespeare’s text manages a couple times to rise above the rest of the film. This happens, as it should, with Miranda’s “O wonder! / How many goodly creatures are there here! / How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world / That has such people in't.” And at the end, when Mirren gravely states, “And thence retire me to my Milan, where / Every third thought shall be my grave.” … “Every third thought shall be my grave,” For as much as I don’t like this play, that’s a damn good line.

I have no strong opinions on Russell Brand, but then it’s no secret that I never like clown characters. Some people are praising him, some people hate him, some people say, “he’s not playing Trinculo, he’s just being himself!” Well I had never heard of Russell Brand before this movie, so I wouldn’t know. It’s hard to go wrong with Helen Mirren and Alan Cumming. And Felicity Jones is the most delightful Miranda I have ever seen. Not that that’s saying much. Let’s be blunt, Miranda and Ferdinand are crap parts. They are boring, wispy children that spend the entire play sighing. Jones demonstrates how to make the part come to life with considerable charm and believability. Her counterpart, Reeve Carter as Ferdinand, does not. His lack of talent, skill, and presence is the most offending part of this movie. He spends the entire movie with one expression on his face. He seems unable to portray any emotion. And don’t even get me started on his poor enunciation or complete inability to speak Shakespearean verse properly. It’s embarrassing.

I can’t help but feel very sorry for Ben Whishaw, a young British actor of considerable talent. I was very excited to hear about this casting, glad that he would be getting some recognition. But his performance is buried in Taymor’s attempt to make Ariel more spirit-like. I heard Taymor claim in interview that they used as little CGI as possible. Well, she should have used even less. A lighter hand would have yielded a more powerful result. As I watched Ariel zip around the movie screen I couldn’t help but wish that she had taken the same approach toward Ariel that Peter Jackson took towards Legolas. There was no question Legolas was otherworldly and light, but he didn’t have to be see-through and float around the screen to prove it.

And this is the real shocker of the movie: Taymor, know for her acuity with visuals, completely fails at using special effects. They destroy any magic or malevolence this story might have. They are cheesy (Ariel flicking the boat to pieces) and inexplicable (Ariel’s here-today-gone-tomorrow breasts). It is astonishing that Shakespeare’s most visual text, one that includes sea storms, spell casting, air spirits, and monsters, has been performed on stage successfully for over 400 years, yet when someone makes a film, and has all the resources to make those images come to life, the play falls apart and the magic is lost. I can think of no stronger argument for the importance and endurance of theatre than that very fact.


Other bloggers’ thoughts on this film:

http://blog.shakespearegeek.com/2010/12/review-julie-taymor-tempest.html

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/12/julie-taymorrsquos-tempest