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Pif Magazine
Pif Magazine |
Twelfth Night (1996)
Trevor Nunn's 1996 film version of Twelfth Night seems founded on an intriguing premise: What would happen if all acting and direction were aimed towards mining the pathos inherent in the play rather than the comic? While all of Shakespeare's Comedies have some degree of pathos — indeed, a Comedy's very nature and resolution often rely on the potential tragedy that has been avoided — Twelfth Night is replete with the tragic, the near tragic and the somber. As the play opens, we have the heroine, Viola, who has been cast ashore from a shipwreck she assumes has claimed the life of her twin brother, Sebastian; Olivia, who is in mourning for both her brother and father (with her estate suffering from her lack of stewardship); and Orsino, moping for his unrequited love of Olivia. As the play progresses, new elements of pathos are introduced, such as Antonio's mistaken belief that he has been betrayed by Sebastian and the deception of Malvolio (meant to be comic, but a little too harsh for some modern audiences). All these elements serve, in most productions, as the typical potentially tragic underpinnings. The plot could go in a tragic direction, but it does not — conflict is resolved and mass weddings ensue. Nunn, while remaining faithful to the lines and plot, manages to transform one of the Bard's most enjoyable Comedies into a somber, morose affair more akin to a wake than a wedding. As the story proceeds, the themes of regeneration and rebirth are revealed in the dialogue and action, but they are absent in the spirit of the play. In any other production, this perplexing lifelessness might just be the principal critique of a failed effort, and, indeed, despite a competent cast and high-caliber set design, this is a failed effort. But Twelfth Night is so consistent in its focus on the inherent pathos in the play that it becomes a case study...a clinical, controlled investigation of one specific, though by no means the most important, feature of the play. My initial impatience and dismay at film's enervated pace becomes fascination. How could one stage the sword fight between the fop Andrew Aguecheek and Viola/Sebastian without it being funny? How could the deception of Malvolio not cause a chuckle somewhere? Suddenly, one is dissecting a cadaver with such a fascinating nervous system that it does not matter how the body died or even what kind of person the corpse was. Like Victor Frankenstein, Nunn has taken parts seemingly bereft of vital force and made them move about. It lives! Or, rather, it does not live! But while impressed, one suspects the effort should not have been undertaken in the first place. Ultimately, the premise of an all-pathos, all-the-time Twelfth Night is intriguing. Perhaps it provides a service to anyone familiar enough with Shakespeare's work to appreciate the patience and discipline it took to achieve such a somber tone and ruthless suppression of the comic. Then again, such an effort will hardly convey the joy and mischievousness of the work to new audiences, and given the ingredients of cast and crew that went into this production, that is a fascinating waste. Tell us what you think. Email talkback@pifmagazine.com Want Pif to review your film? Living in Nashville, TN, Michael Burgin edits for a monthly business magazine and annotates television scripts for syndication abroad. He likes writing bios in which he talks about himself in the third person. |
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