Oh, *that* guy

[randy_byers]

I've been rereading Shakespeare's The Tempest, and it got me in the mood for Shakespeare on film. So I watched A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) again, probably for the fourth or fifth time. One of the things I love about this movie is the cast, with Kevin Klein, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Everett, Stanley Tucci, Christian Bale, and David Straithairn at the top of the bill. However, this time around I recognized a couple of the secondary actors for the first time.

First was Roger Rees as Peter Quince. Rees first came to my attention as the delightfully drunken British ambassador on The West Wing, Lord John Marbury. More recently I spotted him with a completely different accent playing the German-Mexican father in Frida. He actually sports a similar mustache and yet a third accent as Quince. I see from IMDb that he was in The Prestige, but I don't remember his part.

The other actor I recognized was Sam Rockwell as Francis Flute. Rockwell first came to my attention in this year's British SF film, Moon, although I was reminded when I saw Galaxy Quest on an airplane recently that he's the hilarious redshirt character in that film. Rockwell gets one of the great scenes in this adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream when his Thisbe stops the laughter with an unexpectedly heartfelt death scene. It's a great bit of acting, as is his dual role in Moon.

I found the movie less visually interesting than I have in the past, but I still really enjoyed it as a presentation of the play and for the air of melancholy given to the ass, Bottom. He has spent a night in heaven, and it will haunt him the rest of his life. For all the play's comic frothiness, a tone of melancholy is well-suited, because the depiction of love's mechanical and mutable nature is pretty haunting in its own right. It's a little bit like Mozart's opera Cosi fan tutte that way.

Comments

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Not everyone does Shakespeare well. It was heartbreaking how awful Jack Lemon was in the Branagh Hamlet. I remember there being complaints about Depardieu at the time, but Lemon was so much worse. I guess nobody wanted to say that out loud.

Then again, there was a staginess to Shakespeare productions in Lemon's heyday that has been supplanted by greater naturalism in contemporary ones (I find Olivier's Hamlet too painful to watch), and I guess it could just be a matter of a different style.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I've never liked Olivier's Hamlet either. The only one of Branagh's Shakespeare films I've seen is Henry V.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

The only one of Branagh's Shakespeare films I've seen is Henry V.

It's one of my least favorite plays (totally illogical plot) but I liked Branagh's version of Much Ado About Nothing although Michael Keaton was badly directed and way over the top as Dogberry, and, as usual, Keanu Reeves as Don John was totally wooden. However, the rest of the cast were great and I liked the whole feel of it.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I liked Branagh's Loves Labours' Lost, which has a delightful old-style musical vibe to it - and songs. His Hamlet is a bit over-done really, and Branagh felt way too old for the part (but then I generally don't like any Hamlet who looks over 35).

Branagh's best screen Shakespeare is one of the ones he didn't direct - his Iago in Oliver Parker's Othello is fantastic.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reminder! I remember hearing great things about that Othello when it came out.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Yup, Jack Lemmon was just tragic casting in that one.