The Bard’s tale of the ambitious Scottish lord who with his wife conspire to take the throne of Scotland by hook or crook has always made for great cinema. It’s one of the more violent and action-packed of Shakespeare plays and through the eye of Roman Polanski, at the peak of his abilities, turns the story into a ruthless and bloody parable of ambition - a film even more resonant with the Charles Manson tragedy only a couple years behind this production.
Romeo and Juliet (1996) dir. Baz Luhrmann Starring: Leonardo di Caprio, Claire Danes, Dash Mihok, Harold Perrineau, Brian Dennehy, Paul Sorvino, John Leguizamo
***1/2
by Alan Bacchus
There’s nothing subtle about Baz Luhrmann’s hyper kinetic pop art rendition of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In fact there’s nothing subtle about the filmmaking of Baz Luhrmann in general. He manages to apply his unique staccato style of storytelling he demonstrated in Strictly Ballroom to William Shakespeare, a bold gesture which worked back in 1996 and still works today.
Resetting the tragic love story in the sun drenched Venice Beach, CA in a gang culture environment featuring comic book colours and ultra-hip pop music was like a sledgehammer to our heads. Not everything works perfectly in Luhrmann-land, but there’s enough visual and aesthetic innovation and a verve of energy it indeed elevates Shakespeare to another plane of melodramatic entertainment.
The colours, guns, music, hawaiian shirts is really just window dressing for the monumentally tragic core story of star-crossed lovers who together take their own lives in the name of love and war. The story is powerful in any medium, as literature, on stage, as dance, and on film through the eyes of say, Franco Zeffirelli or Baz Luhrmann.
The film’s high points are the opening act. The first 30 mins is a sprint. Before the story even starts Baz shows us a trailer for the movie we’re about to see. What?? We’re then thrown into a Sergio Leone-style standoff and shootout at a gas station, visualized with aggressive stylistic devices such as camera speed ramping, accentuated performances and sound effects, freeze frames and tight editing. These techniques combined with Shakespeare’s original loopy rhythmic dialogue is electrifying.
The Capulet party which the Montague boys, high on esctasy, crash continues the accelerated pace and heightend stylistic euphoria. Only after Romeo meets Juliet, in the wonderfully staged scene through the electric blue fish tank does the film slow down to catch its breath and engage us with the characters and conflict familiar to us in the play.
Leo and Claire make a fine romantic pairing. We feel the genuine love and passion between them, usually a tough sell considering the very quick courtship (a matter of days before they actually get married). The final moments where a combination of coincidence and unfortunate happenstance causes Romeo to take his life thinking Juliet has taken hers is still powerful, even if the art direction has about a 100 more candles in the church than it needs have.
But this is an over-the-top operatic world of melodrama. And so, in Baz Luhrmann’s church there’s a thousands candles and we accept it as so.
On Blu-Ray the film looks fantastic. Donald McAlpine’s saturated colours pop like never before. Leo has never been lit better than his beautifying star-making appearance in the film. Almost every shot seems to have him angling like a supermodel with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, backlit with a gorgeous sunset, or rimmed with a sharp white light making him look like an angel (with a Hawaiian shirt).
Romeo + Juliet is available Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Hamlet (1996) dir. Kenneth Branagh Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Kate Winslet, Derek Jacobi, Julie Christie
****
by Alan Bacchus
One of my most cherished cinema experiences is the 70mm special presentation of “Hamlet” in 1996 at Toronto's now-defunct Eglinton cinema. It was the first film exclusively-shot and projected in 70mm since Ron Howard’s “Far and Away”. It was a dying form of cinema and the “Hamlet” experience will likely be the last (we haven't had a 70mm since then). On the big screen, properly screened with a 70mm print, and in the wonderful gothic-style cinema it was a majestic experience.
Now Kenneth Brangh's "Hamlet" gets its long overdue Blu-Ray release for the first time. And though the small screen is never the best venue for a big film such as this, it’s still a wonderful movie and one of the best filmed adaptations of Shakespeare.
Shakespearian language is always a tough nut to crack, and though I've studied the play, seen multiple versions of the movie, and seen it on stage I still only retain about a quarter of the dialogue. Some characters speak more elaborately than others but it's Hamlet, the most psychological of the characters, who is the most complex. His metaphors, puns, similies and other witty jargon is almost incomprehensible. But Branagh is sure to use body language and voice emotion to convey the meaning of his words visually. At times, during his soliquies Branagh overacts, expounding loud, boisterous shouting, then seguing into quiet careful whispers. When performing this with no one around it can look like bad acting, but it's in service of making the film understandable and it works.
“Hamlet” is Shakespeare’s longest and densest play. And Branagh’s “Hamlet” is the first version to film the full, unedited text of the play. This resulted in a film with a 4-hour running time, one of the longest English-language Hollywood films of all time. But the full-text, 4 hour, 70mm aspects are not just gimmicks, Branagh delivers a truly epic film bigger than any filmed version of Hamlet.
Branagh sets his version in a bright and colourful late 19th century Russian-inspired estate – perhaps inspired by “Nicholas and Alexandra”. It seems to be a conscious choice to escape the usual dark and echoey medieval confines of most other Hamlet renditions. Branagh is aided by Alex Thomson's lush 70mm photography. Take a closer look at the shallowness of the depth of field. Branagh has remarked that on some closeups, depending on the camera angle, he often had to choose which eye to hold focus on - note: 'depth of field' refers to how much of a shot is in focus. The longer the lens length, the less depth of field, but also the bigger the format the less depth of field. This combined with the bulky 70mm camera can make shooting more time consuming, but for Branagh and Thomson the result was some amazing and sumptuous images. And with the extensive steadycam work involved someone must have developed severe back problems.
In making a full-text, 4-hour version Branagh has given us an 'epic' which the play was meant to be. The key addition is the inclusion of the Fortinbras subplot - the Norwegian counterpart to Hamlet who invades Denmark. The famous sword-play showdown is intercut with Fortinbras' massive army attacking the castle. For the first time we get to see how the melodramatic actions and events of Elisonor resulted in not just tragic death of a family but about the loss of kingdom and country. Enjoy.
Hamlet is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Video
