Page 34 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

An Auspicious Opening / 23

come to be perceived as the essence of what we reverently call "the
classics"; Zeffirelli spearheaded the movement to cut away any such
vision. His intent was to rescue the plays from their exalted reputa-
tion, making them fun again. No wonder, then, that Zeffirelli por-
trayed on-screen those moments that Shakespeare had (regrettably,
one assumes) left offstage. In particular, the wedding of Petruchio
and Kate, to which the groom casually arrives less than fashionably
late.
The Petruchio of Zeffirelli and Burton turns the ceremony into
something on the order of Groucho Marx in A Night at the Opera, a
zany anarchist gleefully destroying a solemn social situation. Zef-
firelli also added an extended chase, drawing on the long-established
slapstick approach to The Taming of the Shrew, though stretching
further than anyone previously dared. The boisterous sequence in
which Petruchio pursues Kate for a kiss whizzes by on-screen in a
matter of minutes, appearing improvised; in fact, it was carefully
storyboarded, then filmed over a grueling ten days in which every
detail had to be planned in advance to avoid serious injury.
Lines traditionally delivered by two actors—standing close in a
drawing room—were all but thrown away (Shakespeare's dialogue,
or what remains of it, can't be heard over the uproar) as the two
argue in Kate's parlor. They fight their way across a farmyard (the
film's only exterior set), break into a wine cellar, then retire to the
barn, continuing their battle up into its loft through a handy trap-
door, she darting out the window and onto the roof, Petruchio hur-
rying after. When it caves in, they crash down onto a stack of wool,
where Burton pins Taylor and administers their first kiss.
Yet the end results were uneven. To focus on Taylor and Burton,
it was necessary to whittle down the Bianca subplot. A bigger mis-
take, though, was the director's decision to play this contrasting ele-
ment at the same roaring pace as the main plot, resulting in an
overheated movie; Shakespeare intended the subplot as a release
from all the wild goings-on. Zeffirelli's approach might have fully
worked were it not for a difficult situation no director, however
experienced, could hope to remedy: Our own Queen Elizabeth was
as wrong a choice for Kate, actingwise, as she was perfect in physi-
cal attributes.
Taylor's greatest liability has always been her nasal thin whine of
a voice. Kate's words, however, must resonate more remarkably than
her daring decolletage; in Taylor's case, her breasts performed beau-
tifully, but her vocal chords proved disappointing. Elizabeth