I saw more penises tonight than I usually see in a single day

[teenybuffalo]

I saw Derek Jarman's The Tempest, and Prospero's Books (dir. Peter Greenaway) tonight. I disliked them both. I know a lot of people whose opinions I respect who are into these films, so I wanted to like them as well. However, it was not to be. They bored me stiff. It's hard to make The Tempest boring, but boy, did these films manage it. Just for

Comments

[sovay]

but the great thing is that it then makes you question your assumptions about everybody's physical appearances. Caliban only looks like an ugly middle-aged guy -- by all available evidence he could still be as young as Miranda.

That's one of the reasons I love the scene where Birkett's Caliban leers in on Toyah Willcox's Miranda while she's bathing and at first she crouches away from him, but then she hits him in the face with her bath sponge and he makes a fart noise at her and she literally kicks him out the door and then cracks up at the raucous hooting laughter he's making outside; there's the sexual threat of "had peopled else / This isle with Calibans," and then there are the places where they act like the grown versions of kids who grew up together. In general I like Willcox's Miranda. I get that they did not work for you, but Jarman's Tempest is one of the very few versions I've seen where I believe and like the young lovers. Usually they are silly or they are decorative. (Greenaway's are decorative in the extreme.)

[edit]

[teenybuffalo]

I see what you meant about their having grown up together, yeah. His childishness and her undercutting his threats by sticking out her tongue and resorting to slapstick, take it into the realm of big kids whose threats aren't quite serious.

[negothick]

Thank you for this review--I'm pretty sure I'd share your opinions if I were to seek these films out--I've managed to miss both of them. From your description, they're big-budget Tempest fan-fic, with all the scope for negative or positive reactions to any such personal creations. If you're interested in some low-budget (low-rent!) Tempest fan-fic, Claire Cooney's Medusa Mia! entertainment will include both her "Gentle Caliban" (sung by Ariel to Caliban, post-Prospero) and a short play by Liz Duffy Adams, also set in the aftermath of the departure.

[teenybuffalo]

Haha, yeah, pretty much the same feeling I get from reading fic by someone with a radically different take on canon. I think: did we watch the same original material?

I would trust C.S.E. Cooney, Esq., with any take on "The Tempest."

[negothick]

Well, if you're free on Saturday Dec. 17 and can make it to Westerly, RI, come see Medusa Mia! at 7 p.m. There will be masks and face-painting in addition to the music, mirth, and merriment.
https://www.facebook.com/events/765993160206350/

[teenybuffalo]

Sadly, I'm going to be away that weekend. I've been viewing the announcements on FB with great admiration and I expect it will be excellent.

[alexx_kay]

Neil Gaiman puts the "pork pie" line into Shakespeare's mouth in the Sandman version of Midsummer. I hadn't realized it was from Gilbert!

Prospero's Books holds the record as my "most disatrous first-date movie" (a list which is sadly not short). IIRC, there were 8 people in the theater when it started, a mere 4 by the conclusion.

[teenybuffalo]

It's such a great grouchy-director line, I'm not surprised he liked it too.

Oh my Gawwwwd. OK, that would have been even more uncomfortable as viewing experiences go. There were only a handful of people in the Brattle last night, but they all seemed to be folks who knew what they were getting into when they bought their tickets.

[asakiyume]

This was hilarious to read. I haven't seen (and am not likely to see) either film, but I looked at images online, and they both do seem very **interior** and dark.

[teenybuffalo]

Yes. It was like being trapped at an art gallery opening when you didn't know there would be a live performance piece, and there are interpretive dancers and nudity, and you're not sure whether the property damage is all part of the show or if you should tell someone they're ruining old books and manuscripts.

And thanks.

[rushthatspeaks]

Jack Birkett's Caliban fascinates me even more because the actor had, by the time of filming, gone entirely blind. I didn't know this the first time I saw the film, and did not guess; this time I could see it, but because I was looking for it. His exuberant physicality is entirely and carefully grounded in methods of placing himself in the scene that don't involve sight. He grabs other actors, gets into fights with props and the banister. Really masterful.

I love the house in Jarman's Tempest because Prospero so obviously found it. He can't have built it, and all the furniture and so on was clearly left, just sitting there on this island in the middle of nowhere to rot. Why? Who knows. It's a very odd house for the middle of nowhere, with no fields, no village, no roads, no gardens. Very Gormenghast. Jarman and his crew actually did just find the house and shoot in it, though it's on the actual island of England and so makes somewhat more sense, and the furniture and many of the objects were indeed inside it and had been sitting

[teenybuffalo]

That's astonishing about Jack Birkett. I had no idea at the time -- I thought he had huge, eerie eyes, but it never dawned on me that he wasn't focusing on anything. And looking back, I suppose the evidence is right there if you know what to look for.