The Tempest

Shakespeare The Tempest motion picture. Juli Taymor wrote the screen play, produced, and directed this film seen in theaters in 2010. Stars Helen Mirren, Russell Brand, Reeve Carney, Tom Conti, Chris Cooper, Alan Cumming, Djimon Hounsou, Felicity Jones, Alfred Molina, David Strathairn, and Ben Whishaw. Music by Elliot Goldenthal; costumes by Sandy Powell; cinematography by Stuart Dryburgh; editing by Françoise Bonnot. As is often the case with movie discs, this title includes interesting extras about the making of the film. When I play this disc on my Oppo BDP 83, the player sounds like a cement mixer for about 4 minutes while loading. (I replaced the original disc, but the second one acts the same. Also the Oppo firmware is up to date.  We send a report to Oppo but never heard back.) Released 2011, disc has 5.1 Dolby Digital sound.   Grade: B+

William Shakespeare and Harry Potter spent a night in a tavern drinking mead. They decided to change the Prospero in The Tempest to Prospera. To help modern viewers with shrink-wrapped imaginations, they added lots of computer-generated special effects. The result is a beautiful film with excellent acting and impressive productions values shot in a striking Hawaiian landscape. The sex-change operation isn't as significant as you might think. In addition to the changes, about 20% of Shakespeare's text is cut to get rid of obscure passages and tighten up the movie. People who don't know the play can probably follow this version quite well and find it entertaining. True, the result shows how hard it is even with clever, modern resources to render in high-definition images the power of suggestion of poetry. But on the other hand, we have no confirmed intelligence that any viewer (snob or not) has been harmed by this movie.

Years ago, I used to say that The Tempest was my favorite play, at least from reading it. Any time I heard the expression "sea change," I would smile. But I never got to see the play done by professional actors. So I'll have to admit that this The Tempest is the best performance of the play I've seen. Now I really, really want to get an HDVD of The Tempest from the Globe players. Then I can compare this modern movie version to what the playgoers got back when William was alive. I just pulled out my 3000-page complete Shakespeare Plays annotated by A.L. Rowse. In his critical introduction to The Tempest, Rowse states, "To do [many scenes in the play] justice---perhaps to realize the play as a whole---one needs the resources of film." Well, I doubt that many would call this Taymor version the definitive production of The Tempest, but I would suggest that Taymor was on the right track and came up with an admirable result. One day there may be a HDVD version that students everywhere will see in high schools and colleges.