We Saw "Much Ado About Nothing" and it was basically OK

[drwex]

This is the Joss Whedon piece, done with his familiar cast of friends and filmed at his home. His daughter's bedroom features prominently, for example, and you'll recognize most of the cast from previous Joss efforts, including Buffy, Dollhouse, and Avengers. Three out of five stars if you are a Joss fan and getting to watch Clark Gregg and Reed Diamond verbally spar in the Bard's language is as fun for you as it is for me. Otherwise, two stars.

When adapting any Shakespeare there are two major choices: where to set it and how to adapt the dialog. Theater majors write whole dissertations on the choices made in adapting Shakespeare and I'm not one of those so I'll just tell you what I thought of Whedon's choices: confusing.

Here's the thing - the setting is updated. People wear modern clothes (the actors' own, I believe, since there wasn't much in the way of a wardrobe budget) and there are modern devices like cell phones that show video, cameras, etc. But Whedon uses (mostly) the original dialog. This gives the film the air of one giant affectation, as when someone thinks they'll come across as more intelligent by using polysyllabic words. It takes some doing to get used to these modern-dressed people using "My lord" and "your grace" and similar.

OK, so it's an affectation. It's a comedy and affectation can be funny; Shakespeare mocks affectation in many of his plays. But it's just all the more weird and jarring when one of the actors slips in a modern word or phrase. I don't have the text nearly memorized but several bits really stood out for me and threw me out of the groove.

Speaking of comedy, it seems sadly true that none of the actors here are good at physical comedy. As a result it almost entirely fails to be amusing, except for one Amy Acker pratfall that is actually laugh-out-loud funny. I get that Joss is nodding to commedia from which Shakespeare stole liberally and which informed productions of plays in his time, but comedy is hard, including physical comedy, and this looked painful and embarrassing, not humorous.

Then there's the issue of the dialog choices. It's been noted elsewhere that Much Ado has a sexist streak a mile wide but so be it. That's there and changing it would change the core of the play. However, Joss also leaves in place some other problematic lines, including one racist comment about "an Etheope" which the actor delivers while standing in front of a black woman! Come on, guys, you can do better than that.

Joss also cuts a fair bit out of the play's ending dialog (at least, as I recall it) which leaves the final scenes feeling rushed and short-changed.

I can't leave this without giving extra kudos to Amy Acker. In her past Joss roles she's played characters known for attributes other than physical. Dr. Claire Saunders (Dollhouse) is a medical professional with emotional troubles. Fred Burkle (Angel) is a walking brain with neuroses. In Much Ado she smokes. She's got exactly the combination of verbal zing, physical allure, and steely determination that I think Beatrice is intended to have. She and Alexis Denisof have great screen chemistry throughout the film.

Comments

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

However, Joss also leaves in place some other problematic lines, including one racist comment about "an Etheope" which the actor delivers while standing in front of a black woman!

Given the way the actress glares at him, that would be an entirely deliberate choice by Whedon.

I didn't notice any modern words. Could you be specific?

[drwex]

Yeah, I saw the camera cut to her. That's part of what I find problematic. I think Joss wants us to realize that the line is racist and the woman's reaction shot shows that. So... we empathize with her and not with the hero who is just now getting his girl? WTF? Joss could just as easily have cut the line. I give him no points for leaving it in and giving a person of color a single soundless reaction shot.

As for the modern terms I do not recall them. I'd have to have the DVD to be sure. A couple of them stuck out at me as i was watching, but I didn't take notes.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

Yes, we're supposed to empathize with anyone but Claudio. Because Claudio is a gigantic idiot, and in a just universe, the girl would be macing him. If you think about the Hero and Claudio plot too much, you'll probably want to vomit.

I read that bit of filmography as a comment on the way we handle (or don't handle) literary and historical incidents of casual racism. That Ethiope line almost never gets cut, so just about every time a non-white person sees Much Ado About Nothing (which practically deserves its own entry in Stuff White People Like), there has been that reaction. Putting it on camera did more service to it then it otherwise gets.

I didn't spot any modern terms either.

My big issue with this was the same as my big issue with ANY performance of Much Ado - everyone is basically reenacting the Kenneth Branagh version. (There were actually some places in this one where Alexis Denisof was visibly trying not to be Kenneth Branagh, or to use his inflection. Every time I noticed it, I thought he'd have been better off not working so hard.) There's nothing wrong with Kenneth Branagh, but there's nothing new either. There is a ton of material in the text, and it bugs me that director after director comes in with no plans to uncover the less-worked ground.

The only new thing here was the bit with the cupcake.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

elaborate? I'm pretty sure I saw the Branagh version but don't remember it well enough to see the similarities.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

Compare Branagh's inflections with Denisof's, basically. Branagh was unselfconscious about what he was doing, and hugely influential, so naturally, Denisof - apparently given no alternative cues - finds himself using similar vocal and emotional patterns. Now and then, he appears to realize it, and try to be different, but he is self conscious about it, and it's obvious and awkward, and he has nothing better to do instead. See especially the gulling scene, complaints about Claudio as a lover and "serve god, love me, and mend."

Unless my memory fails me, which it mght, in which case, just watch Branagh and the buy another movie ticket.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw the putting the comment in front of the black woman (I didn't even notice the glare) as pretty much saying to the audience "yes, we know this is a problematic line, and we're highlighting it by adding someone to the background")

To address drwex's thought that the line could be cut, I think it worked better as done

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Yah, Shakespeare is always going to be problematic, because he lived 400 years ago. If Wex wants to bowdlerize it a little, he's got company, but I liked the way it was done here.

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

I actually enjoyed watching this version, and I've seen five versions of the play.

[drwex]

Yes, but you like adaptations. That I saw an adaptation at all is a bit of a miracle.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

If you won't see adaptations, you'll never see Shakespeare at all.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Seconded. But to be fair, there's a difference between doing something mostly straight in original setting and making huge changes.

That said, we did 12th night as within 80's rock band stuff (which also meant that the change of station from staff to other-rock-star suddenly makes it okay to be interested) and we kept almost all the dialog as is. With extra sonnets for battles. badmagic as Antonio added a bit about pirated tapes ...

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

there's a difference between doing something mostly straight in original setting

The problem there is that when it was done at the Globe, the actors weren't dressed up as 11th century Scots, or 15th century Italians, or ancient Romans, or what have you. Shakespeare is always an adaptation, because when Shakespeare was doing it, it was an adaptation.

[drwex]

I think that's a form of hair-splitting. The notion of "adaptation" involves a change to a deliberately different style, location, setting, or whathaveyou. You might as well object that all Bach is an "adaptation" because we do not generally play it on instruments built and tuned as they were in his day. Sure, true, but that's different from, say, a transposition of Bach to an all-electronic ensemble. We would recognize the latter as an 'adaptation' in a way that the conventional presentation is not.

See above about PhDs in this stuff.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

I am shocked, shocked, to find out that there is hair-splitting going on in your LJ.

[drwex]

You know.... because I am a gracious host I shall let that softball lob on by. =P

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

We were trying to decide whether we wanted to see this; thanks for the review.

[drwex]

What did you decide?

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

I sent your post to Norman, who needs to read it and get back to me.

Getting Norman to the movies is always a challenge, since what happens is he says, "We should go see Movie X." I suggest that we go see Movie X on several different occasions over the next month, all of which he rejects. Two or three months later, he says that today would be a good day for Movie X, at which point I inform him that it left the last theatre in the area several weeks ago. He is surprised to hear that the movie is gone Every Single Time. :-)

So far this summer, the only movie I've gotten him to is Star Trek: Into Darkness.