Twelfth Night
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Movie Reviews of Twelfth Night
Movie Review: A must have for Shakesphere lovers!
Summary: 5 Stars
Love it and my daughters love that they can compare it to the She's the Man movie.Movie Review: Twelfth Night DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
I was very pleased with the speed of delivery and the condition of my DVD.Movie Review: great rendition of this play
Summary: 5 Stars
Love the way they did this one! One of my favorite Shakespeare plays. TEMovie Review: Nunn's Twelfth Night
Summary: 4 Stars
Although I am a Shakespeare scholar, I am not what one might call a "purist". That is, I can enjoy film adaptations of Shakespeare's plays which do not include every word of the text, which rearrange lines and/or leave out dozens of lines at a time. Such an adaptation is Trevor Nunn's. He even includes Shakespeare-LIKE added dialogue at the beginning of the film along with scenes which Shakespeare did not write, since, unfortunately, Shakespeare did not have the advatage of cinema. A professor once told me that Shakespeare would have loved film, especially for Antony and Cleopatra, which jumps back and forth frequently between Alexandria and Rome. The same may be said of Twelfth Night, which "cuts" from various outdoor settings in Illyria to Orsino's dwelling to Olivia's house to Olivia's grounds. Trevor Nunn's adaptation takes full advantage of these cinemamatic advantages.
I have one quibble, however, and it is considerable. I know that actors in a film should not "declaim", in stagey deliveries of lines from plays, especially Shakespeare's. However, I do expect the speeches, however "naturally" they are delivered to be intelligible, at audible volume. Such, it seemed to me, is not always the case with Nunn's adaptation. Actors often mumble or practically whisper their lines (especially true of Helena Bonham Carter), and if I were not familiar with the play, I would have no idea of what they are saying. I find it disappointing that the director should not have noted this during the rushes (or whenever) and sharpened the delivery so that more of Shakespeare's irreplaceable lines could be distinctly heard and understood.
However, Trevor Nunn's film of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is remarkably successful in most instances, and this is largely due to the perfect casting.
Movie Review: a rare movie
Summary: 4 Stars
Beautiful locations, good photography, a good story that makes you think twice and then think twice more. Good performances by Imogen Stubbs and Helena and good teamwork between them. With a production this good and a play this monumental, it hurts all the more when there are flaws.
For one, the director was so keen to be true to the text that he had the actors even speak the typos.
For another, on one or two occasions, the actors speak so rapidly that they amalgamate words, as for instance in Viola's "Be my aid ... my intent" and Olivia's "in indifferent red."
More serious is the complete misunderstanding of the character of Antonio when caught by Orsino's men. Instead of preserving his dignity and stroking his own ego as an Elizabethan man would, Antonio delivers this speech ("Orsino, noble sir, ...") in a brattish, defiant, nose-thumbing way that makes him sound like a twentieth-century teenager caught smoking.
Still more serious is the apparently deliberate garbling or replacement of lines, as in the song, "Youth is such stuff as will not endure." You will never guess that this is what the line says. I claim it's deliberate because this line is sung over and over again three or four times. One has the feeling that the filmmaker didn't want to antagonize youth (which is the majority audience) and make them think too much about the fact that their youth will be short-lived.
Still, this movie is far superior to anything Branagh has made and should appeal to general audiences, not just to the "elite."
If only someone would do the same for "As You Like It" which is an even better play. Branagh's film is an insult.