Page 109 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

98 I Shakespeare in the Movies

Jaques, that deeply disturbed malcontent. Audiences approaching
this film with no previous knowledge would never guess Feste is a
man of motley; instead of delivering his lines in an ironic manner,
bald-pated, darkly cloaked Kingsley spits them out as curses. The
function of Feste is negated, which makes the film bleaker than it
ought to be.
Helena Bonham Carter is a marvelous Olivia—an intelligent, deep
person rather than the silly, distracted woman she's often depicted
as. Thus, when she goes head over heals crazy with love, the effect
is all the funnier. Numerous touches ring true, such as having Sebas-
tian arrive in the land with a copy of Baedeker's Illyria under his
arm, a contemporary nod to Shakespeare's anachronisms. Also
impressive and appreciated is Nunn's decision to underplay rather
than overdo gender bending, which is more appealing by not being
pushed for topical purposes. The scene in which Viola (disguised as
Cesario) and Orsino almost kiss, under the spell of a romantic song,
is a marvelous statement about love that's true enough to cross all
lines.
Ultimately, though, this film comes across as a Kenneth Branagh
movie without the Branagh magic. Costuming was clearly derived
from Branagh's approach; the characters are outfitted in an assort-
ment of late-nineteenth-century uniforms and gowns. Nunn did not
employ those American actors who added such notable energy to
Branagh's films, however, thereby moving Nunn's work into the art-
house cinema realm (that "movie-movie" Branagh cautiously
avoids). Still, there is much that is charming here, particularly
Imogen Stubbs as the disguised Viola, heatedly pursued by Helena
Bonham Carter's obsessed Olivia.
Nunn went to great lengths to emphasize that this was a movie,
not a stage play, including an elaborate depiction of the shipwreck,
after which Shakespare's Viola crawls out of the sea. The locations
are vivid; still, Richard Alleva of Commonweal held that the very
qualities that make Twelfth Night such a magical piece on the stage
negate its possiblities for film. The willing suspension of disbelief,
necessary for us to accept that everyone believes Viola is a boy,
works better when the lighting, costuming, set design, and perfor-
mance style are all artificial, legitimizing the artificiality of the
premise. "But what happens when you put the actors in nature and
point a camera at their only moderately made up faces?" Alleva
asked; the contrivance at the heart of this piece cannot stand such a
strong dose of reality.