Day 19: Your favorite movie version of a play

[a_t_rain]

Choices, choices. OK, "movie" to me implies "full-on Hollywood cinematic treatment," so I assume we're not supposed to pick, say, filmed stage productions (although I have a huge soft spot for these, particularly if you can see the audience reactions) or made-for-TV versions. That narrows the field.

Somewhat to my own surprise, my final pick is not Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing.



Theatrical comedy is hard to do well on film. There's something about the community of live theater, and the chemistry between the actors and the audience, that's pretty well impossible to capture in a movie version, and it's this element that makes a lot of the jokes. (I kinda suspect that the laugh track on sitcoms is a cheap way to create an illusion of this chemistry, although it never works very well.) So a lot of the material just isn't as funny.

Shakespearean comedies involving cross-dressing tend to work even less well on film, at least for me. I think the problem is that when I'm watching a live performance I'm generally willing to suspend a ton of disbelief, accept that a change of costume signals a change of character, and go along with the ride, whereas if I'm watching a film, I'm expecting realism. And Twelfth Night, in particular, is hard to pull off plausibly -- I mean, not only does the woman playing Viola have to be able to do a convincing male interpretation and keep it up for almost the entire play, but she and Sebastian have to be convincing as confusable twins. So, one of the things I really like about Trevor Nunn's Twelfth Night is that it absolutely nails the twin-thing. Imogen Stubbs' Viola is pretty much my gold standard for cross-dressing parts. We're definitely conscious of her disguise throughout the film, and of the physical and mental discomfort it entails, but at the same time she makes it totally plausible that the other characters would be taken in. You can see why Olivia is charmed.

The other performance that really makes this film for me is Ben Kingsley's Feste, played as an aloof, slightly world-weary observer who knows more than he tells. This is a movie that totally gets the undercurrent of sadness underneath the clown scenes, and runs with it. (I've linked to this before, but my favorite moment is "O Mistress Mine", with Sir Toby and Sir Andrew and Maria all looking on, aware that youth and love are fragile and fading, interspersed with shots of Orsino and Viola falling for each other -- and a few quick cuts to Olivia and Malvolio, both of them slowly waking up to the fact that a disturbing element has entered their world. It's lovely. So is the next bit, in which everyone inches a little closer to seizing the day.)

Also, it's a really gorgeous film, visually -- lots of play with light and dark, and an autumnal Illyria that is, by turns, gloomy and rich with color.



Day #1: Your favorite play
Day #2: Your favorite character
Day #3: Your favorite hero
Day #4: Your favorite heroine
Day #5: Your favorite villain
Day #6: Your favorite villainess
Day #7: Your favorite clown
Day #8: Your favorite comedy
Day #9: Your favorite tragedy
Day #10: Your favorite history
Day #11: Your least favorite play
Day #12: Your favorite scene
Day #13: Your favorite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favorite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favorite speech
Day #18: Your favorite dialogue
Day #19: Your favorite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favorite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favorite couple
Day #27: Your favorite couplet
Day #28: Your favorite joke
Day #29: Your favorite sonnet
Day #30: Your favorite single line