Although Shakespeare's comedy is set in Sicily it was filmed, appropriately enough for this Anglo-American production, in Tuscany where large parts of it have been anglicised by the Chiantishire set. As the Prince of Arragon and his noblemen return home from war, Hero is wooed by Claudio whilst her older cousin Beatrice seeks to renew her warring with Benedick, her equal in wit who in response to her enquiry "But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?" declares what all reasonable people must feel when love takes over their reason: "Suffer love! A good epithet. I do suffer love, indeed, for I love thee against my will." Unseen just beneath the happy veneer of frivolity the bastard Don John has plans to seek revenge upon his brother the prince by spoiling the affair for his gullible friend. The roles of Beatrice and Benedick are here presented, if not originally plotted by Shakespeare, as the two key performances and how could they be anything other than with the remarkable Emma Thompson (`Sense and Sensibility') and Kenneth Branagh (`Henry V') bringing their dynamic energy to the parts. Such is the direction and brilliance of these two that despite their dazzlingly white garments they have the unfortunate effect of casting the rest of the characters into the shade.
Although plot devices from his earlier `Romeo & Juliet' and later `Othello' are used here, they are less satisfactorily developed than in the great tragedies. The one key issue I have with this play is with the fickle suitor being so easily forgiven by his former love after publicly humiliating her. I would have expected a more testing punishment from the Bard although he presumably decided to leave the original ancient Greek storyline alone, highlighting as it does the double standards of men and the traditional portrayal of meek acceptance by women. His creation however of the razor sharp and independent minded Beatrice is an obvious exception to this who entreats Benedick to kill Claudio for the ill treatment of her cousin. The most telling point of Benedick's high regard for Beatrice comes when he takes her word that in her soul she believes her relation innocent, and upon this his mind is then set to act for her.
The wisdom of the use of some of the American actors has been questioned but Branagh obviously had regard for his intended audience that is reflected in his eclectic casting. The dude (Keanu Reeves) from `Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure' and the 'existentialist' hi-tech Matrix series is a witty choice when he exclaims he is a man of few words, although Don John's character does not possess Iago's full scale of villainy as Kenneth Branagh dastardly delineates in his own film version of `Othello'. Last year's Oscar winning Denzel Washington reliably lends presence and credibility to his role of Don Pedro. Michael Keaton as a ludicrously off-the-wall caricature Constable Dogberry ensures he at least gets noticed along with his sidekick Ben Elton, who borrows from his own infamous `Black Adder' series creation of Tony Robinson's Baldrick.
Fortuitously the Royal Shakespeare Company toured last year with a marvellously funny staging of the play with the superb Harriet Walter as, in the words of the reviewer for the Independent, the "dazzlingly attractive" Beatrice, and Nicholas Le Provost (currently in `Foyle's War' on ITV1) her splendid verbal sparring partner. Although Branagh's version gives a visual treat of the Tuscan landscape and some pretty actors it has to be said that, perhaps rightly and justly so, the RSC production out-acted, out-directed and out-classed the film with its fuller more polished company performance. With such stylish productions it is sad to hear of the latest RSC financial report showing a serious drop in revenues, an affliction affecting all forms of British art resulting from the reduction in tourists following the outrage of 9/11. The resultant if startling initiative by the RSC is to turn to the video games market, with `The Tempest' fittingly to be the lead play to lend itself to the fantasy treatment. Also worth mentioning here and viewing if a copy can possibly be tracked down, is Stuart Burge's 1984 theatre-on-television version for the BBC with Cherie Lunghi and Robert Lindsay wonderfully cast in the lead roles. Incidentally in June of last year Harriet Walter also contributed to the excellent new Faber series of `Actors on Shakespeare' with her illuminating and empathetic interpretation of the Macbeths' "folie a deux" (although regretfully a couple of decades too late for my own O'level script I would highly recommend it to any students of the text), as well as producing her own thoroughly instructive and entertaining thoughts on acting in `Other People's Shoes'.
As a further point of interest the film's title lent itself to Michael Rubbo's 2001 Australian documentary `Much Ado About Something', shown on BBC4 this autumn, on an entertaining but not definitive examination of the age-old question of whether Christopher Marlowe was really behind Shakespeare's genius. Also for the BBC, an ardent Michael Woods earlier gave an entertaining and well-presented counter argument. Whatever the truth, Shakespeare's body of work has had an undeniably profound impact on the spoken and written word and with the translation into eighty languages his influence reaches around the Globe. Amongst its bewildering potpourri of a list compiled last year by the BBC of the Greatest Britons ever, he at least rightly featured in the top 5.
This film certainly makes a do about something that is clearly a fundamental truth of the battle between the sexes. A lot of noise and energy has gone into this production to ensure it remains something in the memory of the viewing public. It is readily accessible Shakespeare and for that merit it ranks alongside Mel Gibson's `Hamlet' (directed by Franco Zeffirelli in 1990 and at half the running time of Branagh's 1996 four-hour marathon) though it can be easily differentiated by more humour and a somewhat lower body count.
Although plot devices from his earlier `Romeo & Juliet' and later `Othello' are used here, they are less satisfactorily developed than in the great tragedies. The one key issue I have with this play is with the fickle suitor being so easily forgiven by his former love after publicly humiliating her. I would have expected a more testing punishment from the Bard although he presumably decided to leave the original ancient Greek storyline alone, highlighting as it does the double standards of men and the traditional portrayal of meek acceptance by women. His creation however of the razor sharp and independent minded Beatrice is an obvious exception to this who entreats Benedick to kill Claudio for the ill treatment of her cousin. The most telling point of Benedick's high regard for Beatrice comes when he takes her word that in her soul she believes her relation innocent, and upon this his mind is then set to act for her.
The wisdom of the use of some of the American actors has been questioned but Branagh obviously had regard for his intended audience that is reflected in his eclectic casting. The dude (Keanu Reeves) from `Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure' and the 'existentialist' hi-tech Matrix series is a witty choice when he exclaims he is a man of few words, although Don John's character does not possess Iago's full scale of villainy as Kenneth Branagh dastardly delineates in his own film version of `Othello'. Last year's Oscar winning Denzel Washington reliably lends presence and credibility to his role of Don Pedro. Michael Keaton as a ludicrously off-the-wall caricature Constable Dogberry ensures he at least gets noticed along with his sidekick Ben Elton, who borrows from his own infamous `Black Adder' series creation of Tony Robinson's Baldrick.
Fortuitously the Royal Shakespeare Company toured last year with a marvellously funny staging of the play with the superb Harriet Walter as, in the words of the reviewer for the Independent, the "dazzlingly attractive" Beatrice, and Nicholas Le Provost (currently in `Foyle's War' on ITV1) her splendid verbal sparring partner. Although Branagh's version gives a visual treat of the Tuscan landscape and some pretty actors it has to be said that, perhaps rightly and justly so, the RSC production out-acted, out-directed and out-classed the film with its fuller more polished company performance. With such stylish productions it is sad to hear of the latest RSC financial report showing a serious drop in revenues, an affliction affecting all forms of British art resulting from the reduction in tourists following the outrage of 9/11. The resultant if startling initiative by the RSC is to turn to the video games market, with `The Tempest' fittingly to be the lead play to lend itself to the fantasy treatment. Also worth mentioning here and viewing if a copy can possibly be tracked down, is Stuart Burge's 1984 theatre-on-television version for the BBC with Cherie Lunghi and Robert Lindsay wonderfully cast in the lead roles. Incidentally in June of last year Harriet Walter also contributed to the excellent new Faber series of `Actors on Shakespeare' with her illuminating and empathetic interpretation of the Macbeths' "folie a deux" (although regretfully a couple of decades too late for my own O'level script I would highly recommend it to any students of the text), as well as producing her own thoroughly instructive and entertaining thoughts on acting in `Other People's Shoes'.
As a further point of interest the film's title lent itself to Michael Rubbo's 2001 Australian documentary `Much Ado About Something', shown on BBC4 this autumn, on an entertaining but not definitive examination of the age-old question of whether Christopher Marlowe was really behind Shakespeare's genius. Also for the BBC, an ardent Michael Woods earlier gave an entertaining and well-presented counter argument. Whatever the truth, Shakespeare's body of work has had an undeniably profound impact on the spoken and written word and with the translation into eighty languages his influence reaches around the Globe. Amongst its bewildering potpourri of a list compiled last year by the BBC of the Greatest Britons ever, he at least rightly featured in the top 5.
This film certainly makes a do about something that is clearly a fundamental truth of the battle between the sexes. A lot of noise and energy has gone into this production to ensure it remains something in the memory of the viewing public. It is readily accessible Shakespeare and for that merit it ranks alongside Mel Gibson's `Hamlet' (directed by Franco Zeffirelli in 1990 and at half the running time of Branagh's 1996 four-hour marathon) though it can be easily differentiated by more humour and a somewhat lower body count.