Just the Ticket #42: Lend Me Your Ears
Does anybody remember feeling totally mind-fucked when director Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge and the commencement-speech-turned-inspirational-hit-song, "Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen") put out William Shapespeare's Romeo+Juliet in 1996? I mean, who expected Leonardo Di Caprio and Claire Daines, not to mention then-typecast-junkie John Leguizamo, to walk around in modern times spouting verbatim Shakespearean prose and talking about swords before "smiting thee" with guns?
Well, Coriolanus is a more entertaining and acceptable dose of the same, this time with Raif Fines (or Ralf Feyenez, depending on whether you like tomaytoes or tomahtoes) in the director's chair.
Whatever you choose to call him, director Ralph Fiennes does double duty on Coriolanus, starring in the title role as a Roman general who not only fits the ancient Greek/Roman archetype of a hero fallen to his own hubris, but also seems unable to help it since he likewise embodies many of the traits of a modern warrior; Caius Martius "Coriolanus" is prideful of his accomplishments, yet he is adamant to not make sport of his battle scars and seems uncomfortable in any setting other than war.
He is consequently marked for exile and goes in search of his wartime nemesis, Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler), to help him exact vengeance against the city that spurned him. Coriolanus' pride and desire for war do him in twice more as his friends and family (The Bourne Trilogy's Brian Cox as advisor Menenius, Mission Impossible's Vanessa Redgrave as mother Volumnia, and The Help's Jessica Chastain as wife Virgilia) are by turns denied a voice against his impending coup and Aufidius' army begins to sideline their general and elect Coriolanus their new leader and idol.
The stars do their nominal magnitude justice, delivering performances worthy of the bard behind the pen, especially Fiennes, who gets into character with maniac intensity, even spitting Shakespearean pentameter in scenes where everyone else is spitting bullets in his direction. Gerard Butler likewise performs beyond standard, but is often a delight for other reasons (an Italian with a thick Scottish accent?), reminding me of one stand-up comic's routine on how even when he's supposed to be speaking Japanese (Rising Sun) or playing a Russian in The Hunt For Red October, Sean Connery is unable to avoid his Scottish accent. Everyone else, including legendary Redgrave and new Everywhere Girl Jessica Chastain, though they perform in line with the leading men, are just tools and window dressing for Fiennes and Butler's epic squabble.
The concept goes awry sometimes, as with the old a-sword-is-a-gun oddity we saw in R+J and the afore-mentioned wartime poesy on Fiennes' part, but no matter who sees fit to update (read: screw with) his vision, Shakespeare is awesome.
B+
Apologies for the belated review, but it comes with some good news. Yours truly has finally gotten a job. I am now breaking my back six days a week at a local orchard getting their honeycrisp apple fields ready for the new season. We'll be painting and wrapping the saplings for the next week or two, then I think the trussing and spraying comes next. Two days in and I already know what my sixty-year-old parents have to deal with every day; when I can feel my legs and back, they hurt like hell.
So I guess daily reviews are out of the picture for awhile. I will be going back to the old format of reviewing the week in movies as one big weekend release. Stayeth tuned, ye merry gentlemen (for in Shakespeare's day, the other sex too were played by such).
The stars do their nominal magnitude justice, delivering performances worthy of the bard behind the pen, especially Fiennes, who gets into character with maniac intensity, even spitting Shakespearean pentameter in scenes where everyone else is spitting bullets in his direction. Gerard Butler likewise performs beyond standard, but is often a delight for other reasons (an Italian with a thick Scottish accent?), reminding me of one stand-up comic's routine on how even when he's supposed to be speaking Japanese (Rising Sun) or playing a Russian in The Hunt For Red October, Sean Connery is unable to avoid his Scottish accent. Everyone else, including legendary Redgrave and new Everywhere Girl Jessica Chastain, though they perform in line with the leading men, are just tools and window dressing for Fiennes and Butler's epic squabble.
The concept goes awry sometimes, as with the old a-sword-is-a-gun oddity we saw in R+J and the afore-mentioned wartime poesy on Fiennes' part, but no matter who sees fit to update (read: screw with) his vision, Shakespeare is awesome.
B+
Apologies for the belated review, but it comes with some good news. Yours truly has finally gotten a job. I am now breaking my back six days a week at a local orchard getting their honeycrisp apple fields ready for the new season. We'll be painting and wrapping the saplings for the next week or two, then I think the trussing and spraying comes next. Two days in and I already know what my sixty-year-old parents have to deal with every day; when I can feel my legs and back, they hurt like hell.
So I guess daily reviews are out of the picture for awhile. I will be going back to the old format of reviewing the week in movies as one big weekend release. Stayeth tuned, ye merry gentlemen (for in Shakespeare's day, the other sex too were played by such).
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