Before The Viewing: Thoughts, Feelings, and Notes
Alrighty! So when I chose The Tempest, I wanted something that I had never heard of before. I wanted to have a clean view on what the story was about. Unlike the other plays I have chosen, I have never heard The Tempest come up in any discussions, educational, analytical, or otherwise. This film was nominated for Academy Award's Best Costume Design Sandy Powell, and Satellite Awards Best Actress Helen Mirren. I am curious to see what Julie Taymor had in mind when she directed this film. Onward.
After The Viewing: Thoughts, Feelings, and Notes
OK. I will flat out say this: I was thoroughly confused by this story. I felt as if most of it was simply busy work, extras that did not need to be there. But maybe that was the point of what Julie Taymor was trying to convey. Reading the play did not prepare me for what Taymor had in mind when she took such a modern approach to this play. I will touch in three things that stood out to me as I watched this play: the romance within the film, Ariel the spirit, and Prospero's character.
The romance that develops between Miranda, Prospero's daughter, and Ferdinand, the King of Naples's son, in the film has got to be one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, albeit a bit slow. To watch two extremely innocent people meet each other and fall in love was the absolute highlight of watching this film, and certainly makes up for it to some extent. Their love also explains how sheltered they both were until they met on that island. Miranda has lived with Prospero on that unnamed island for twelve years. It is all she knows. She wishes to be free and adventurous while also wishing to remain true to Prospero. Ferdinand has traveled the world, but you can see that he is not used to speaking to females, especially beautiful ones. He is a soft-spoken eloquent speaker on my first impression and he seems very naive. But together, they are perfect. They stand up for the other and make the other feel special. They have this sort of innocent love that you cannot seem to get enough of.
The romance that develops between Miranda, Prospero's daughter, and Ferdinand, the King of Naples's son, in the film has got to be one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, albeit a bit slow. To watch two extremely innocent people meet each other and fall in love was the absolute highlight of watching this film, and certainly makes up for it to some extent. Their love also explains how sheltered they both were until they met on that island. Miranda has lived with Prospero on that unnamed island for twelve years. It is all she knows. She wishes to be free and adventurous while also wishing to remain true to Prospero. Ferdinand has traveled the world, but you can see that he is not used to speaking to females, especially beautiful ones. He is a soft-spoken eloquent speaker on my first impression and he seems very naive. But together, they are perfect. They stand up for the other and make the other feel special. They have this sort of innocent love that you cannot seem to get enough of.
Ariel the spirit is a very refreshing character throughout the film. He is referred to as male, but his gender is ambiguous. Prospero found him cursed into a tree and, taking pity on him, freed him and made him her helper/servant. Ariel is utterly enchanting with a beautiful singing voice. He spends his time throughout the film following Prospero's orders in the hopes that he will be free one day, even by becoming the magic tempest that wreaks the boat and brings the stranded to the island. I truly enjoy Ariel's character because he is the most human of them all, even though he is a spirit. He jokes and laughs, he works endlessly, and he is always looking for the one thing he wants the most: his freedom. I believe that those are all on some level human qualities, and Ariel possesses them all.
Prospero in the original script is a male, the Duke of Venice. However, Julie Taymor decided to cast a woman as Prospera, and make her the Duchess of Venice. I believe that by doing this, Taymor played Prospera as more of a victim than she originally was. When her husband, the Duke, passed away, her brother accused her of killing him with magic. Being a woman who was fond of knowledge, it played to be a very believable story. She was cast out to die with her only child Miranda, who was three years old at the time, while her brother assumed the role of Duke. Julie stated when she decided on the casting of Prospera that she "didn't really have a male actor that excited [her] in mind, and yet there had been a couple of phenomenal females-Helen Mirren being one of them-who [made her think]: 'My God, does this play change? What happens if you make that role into a female role?'". I believe that Julie Taymor wanted to change the play and our predetermined views of this play and possibly any other Shakespearean play. Instead of a dominant male character, you have a dominate FEMALE character who wishes to gain knowledge, practices magic, and searches for hidden truths. That is the kind of women Shakespeare wrote of.
Although it was confusing at times, The Tempest was an interesting piece to view. It has a certain charm that I find very comforting, even though this is not a comforting play. I would not mind if I saw this again.