THE SCOTTISH PLAY

 

          In the course of many years spent in the dark, I have reviewed a considerable number and variety of Shakespeare movies.  If memory serves, I have seen, in no particular order, one Much Ado About Nothing, one Henry V, one Merchant of Venice, two Richard IIIs, one Romeo and Juliet, three Hamlets, one Tempest, and one Titus Andronicus.  Those productions mostly earned praise from critics and a few even deserved it (Shakespeare always makes film reviewers feel intelligent).  Despite their source material, however, the various adaptations achieve a decidedly mixed success.

          Probably since Orson Welles directed Julius Caesar in modern dress, a great many filmmakers (and stage directors for that matter) seem determined to set their productions in a different time from Shakespeare’s, perhaps to allow for unusual interpretations, perhaps to appeal to modern audiences, perhaps to show their ingenuity, maybe just for the hell of it.  The most famous play in the canon, Hamlet, not surprisingly, has undergone the widest and often most unusual adaptations

          After earning embarrassingly ecstatic reviews for his stagey, dull production of Henry V, essentially a filmed play, Kenneth Branagh moved ever upward in what has become a long and successful career.  His Hamlet, in which he played the title character, completely reversed the method of his previous play, setting the action in a 19^th century royal court, with lavish costuming, elegant decoration, and  a cast studded with stars.  At moments, in fact, the play looked as if every actor in Hollywood landed a part, including such surprising choices as Robin Williams and Billy Crystal; when Jack Lemmon appeared I wondered for a moment if he was going to reprise a previous role and do Grumpy Old Danes.

          The most inventive, not always necessarily the best, Shakespeare productions that I reviewed include an extremely varied trio of movies.  Richard Loncraine set his version of Richard III, starring Ian McKellen as the cunning, crippled usurper, in a careful representation of the 1930s, employing the context of a Fascist takeover as the means of Richard’s ascent to power, an excellent modern metaphor.  Perhaps signaling his own update, Baz Luhrmann abbreviated the title of Shakespeare’s most famous romantic tragedy slightly to Romeo & Juliet, setting it in the contemporary world, with all sorts of ingenious ways of dealing with the transformation.  Partly because of its urgent pace, partly because of its young cast, the interpretation bubbled with color and youthful energy.  The most daring and unlikely Shakespeare production of them all, however, must be Julie Taymor’s remarkable Titus, a special version of the violent, bloody Titus Andronicus, complete with rape, murders, mutilations, and cannibalism: what’s not to like?  Of all the plays, I would bet the mortgage that this one at least will never be filmed again.

          The strangest of the Hamlet films I’ve reviewed must be the one set in contemporary New York City, directed, with some ingenuity at least, by Michael Almereyda.  Denmark now becomes the Denmark Corporation, whose CEO has died, leaving the familiar problems after his demise.  Like all the other adaptations of the play, this one features a cast of well-known names, including Liev Schreiber, Sam Shepard, Casey Affleck, and Bill Murray.  Murray plays the ghost, who seems to materialize from and then disappear into a Pepsi machine in a corridor of the Denmark headquarters, suggesting a new meaning to the sentry’s line, “For this relief, much thanks.”   The quirkiest touch of all, however, belongs to Ethan Hawke, who spends most of the movie wearing one of those Peruvian (?) woolen ski hats, looking not so much like Hamlet the Dane as Hamlet the Dork.

          The Tragedy of Macbeth, Joel Coen’s latest movie, which he both wrote and directed, represents the latest foray into Shakespeare country, a journey from which he emerges, shall we say, scathed.  As most directors must, he cuts the play ruthlessly, which tends to reduce it to sheer plot, so the protagonist’s ascension to power moves pretty quickly.  He includes the major events, however, with a clever and quite spooky version of the three witches to kick things off.  Denzel Washington plays the title character with some considerable understatement, best shown in the famous “Tomorrow and tomorrow . . .” lines.  Frances McDormand, on the other hand, no matter her history and credentials, seems horribly miscast as Lady Macbeth.  So successful in the semi-comic, somewhat drably realistic parts she played in Fargo and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, she lacks the passion, the presence, and the commanding appearance of the murderess; she roams the battlement draped in a voluminous white sheet, regretting her evil and screaming loudly but unconvincingly.

          The most striking elements of the film, however, result from the work of the set designers and cinematographers.  The camera often shows the actors from overhead or poised against the bleak backgrounds of Scotland, emphasizing some of the essential loneliness of the play, of the tragic hero, and perhaps of tragedy itself.  The stark black and white photography is interrupted once, when the soldiers bearing Birnam Wood to Dunsinane cover themselves in branches and greenery before trooping off to battle, with the steady, ominous thump of their march echoing on the sound track.

          The sets reflect a genuine congruity with the cinematography and with the apparent vision of the director.  Austere and empty, lacking decoration and texture, they reduce the action, character, and context to an unusually minimalist state, suggesting a kind of odd purity in the director’s vision.  The castle itself seems stark and abstract, mostly uninhabited, a Cubist construction right out of the Bauhaus, darkly lit, threatening in its shapes and angles and shadows. 

          Coen’s Macbeth, no matter its particular qualities, fits squarely in the long tradition of individuals translating Shakespeare’s plays in all sorts of idiosyncratic manners to the cinema.  As I suggested, that tradition encompasses a wide variety of adaptations, many of them bizarre or simply misguided.  But let’s face it, our greatest poet’s works will survive the strangest, the weirdest, even the worst desecrations, and his plays will continue to enchant audiences and inspire interpreters on stage and screen.  As Dumas remarked, “After God, Shakespeare created the most.”