Page 108 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

Sophisticated Comedy I 97

Hollywood film producers avoided this piece. The only American
producer who dared do a version was Hugh Hefner. In 1988, he com-
missioned a soft-core porn version for the Playboy Channel. By the
mid-nineties, however, gay liberation had come out of the closet, all
but overtaking popular culture; a film of Twelfth Night, with its
Elizabethan gender bending, was a great idea waiting to happen. So
theatrical director Trevor Nunn (whose only previous films were
Hedda and Lady Jane) and movie producer David Parfitt (Kenneth
Branagh's collaborator on Much Ado About Nothing) mounted a
handsome version, released in America by Fine Line.
Parfitt and Nunn shot Twelfth Night entirely in Cornwall,
making extensive use of the picturesque coast. They completed all
exterior filming during the autumn months, for a gorgeous array of
fall colors as well as an overpowering melancholia conveyed by per-
petually gray skies. This look is striking; whether it's what Shake-
speare had in mind for his festive play is debatable.
In its all-important first third, Twelfth Night is slow-going—par-
ticularly compared to Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing. A greater
problem, though, is one that has plagued stage productions for cen-
turies: The comic bits involving gross Toby Belch (Mel Smith), pre-
tentious Andrew Aguecheek (Richard E. Grant), and silly maid Maria
(Imelda Staunton), however ripe for humor, seldom strike anyone as
funny when visualized, live or on film. Belch tends to come off as a
Falstaff without the charm that makes Sir John's horrible habits tol-
erable; the nastiness of the plot against Malvolio violates the cele-
bratory comedic climate, moving into a predecessor of the comedy of
cruelty.
That problem is compounded here by the casting of Nigel
Hawthorne as Malvolio. He rescues the character from the cliche
Malvolio's name suggests (i.e., bad fiddle or one who is out of tune).
By making the man less vicious and considerably sympathetic, how-
ever, Hawthorne causes the plot against Malvolio to appear all the
more disasteful. At the play's end, dislikable young Malvolio stalks
away, viciously cursing everyone; here a humbled old gent packs his
bags and quietly leaves, making us feel sorry for a sad, decent man
with no place to go. Earlier, though, Hawthorne does provide the
film's high point. Convinced Olivia is mad for him, he dares enter
her boudoir wearing a grotesque outfit, grinning at imminent seduc-
tion; Twelfth Night reaches a farcical pitch which, sadly, it never
again achieves. A bigger problem is Ben Kingsley as Feste. There is
nothing festive or clownish about him; he's played as a variation on