La nuit des rois

Reading Trevor Nunn's thoughts on his film, it is easy to conclude that they were lucky to obtain such sublime weather for the large duration of the filming, in November. The Cornwall locations are absolutely enchanting; showing an England so far from the urban norm these days. The beautiful natural light, with later dark contrasts, perfectly complements the jovial, winning mood of this Shakespeare comedy brought to screen: and, what is more, this is truly beyond any sense of 'heritage cinema', as Shakespeare's genius is retained.

Yes, it is all a very 'accessible' package, but much is unusual and distinctive to this film adaptation. Ben Kinglsey is perhaps the most glaring instance of a radical re-invisioning; his acting - stripped bare of artifice - is utterly compelling and keeps you watching his every mannerism. This Feste is an eccentric, multi-talented clown and performer, but he also bears words of cutting, melancholy truth. Indeed, both are wonderfully combined with the gorgeously sad scene of Staunton, Grant and Smith listening to his sad song: they listen and the words cut into their veneers. Loneliness is at their very core. What a brilliantly rounded comedy this is; balanced by melancholy - the inch-perfect awry note struck by Hawthorne's Malvolio appearing at the end - and good will - the comradely bonhomie that Grant and Smith are indeed shown to share.

Hawthorne and perhaps more surprisingly Mel Smith and Richard E. Grant really do a fine job and imbuing some real character in their parts; treading a line between broad comedic playing and human sadness. Along with Kingsley's career-best (? not seen too many of his films) performance, they lend this film its heart, and play very well against the wonderful settings. Mackintosh and Stubbs are I guess a little less compelling, but these roles are really difficult to carry off... nothing about them really lingers too long in the memory, like Kingsley's expressions, bizarre little pieces of dance and his pared-down delivery. Helena Bonham Carter is perhaps overly assured as the vain countess dame, Olivia: oh so archly bemused when faced by the cross-gartered, prancing Hawthorne, but generally Ms. Bonham Carter is very much in her usual, predictably petulant, period-costume mode. Which is probably being unfair; she does convince, at the end of the day.

Overall then, a wonderfully colourful delight, bearing the flavour of bright, melancholy late summer-into-autumn. A strange chill is cast by the compelling Kinglsey; a sadness that cannot be dispelled. This film has light amusement in addition to this real edge, and is ultimately a very affecting rendering of a bona fide Shakesperean classic.

Reading other reviews of 'Twelfth Night' it is interesting to see that some people think it is a slow film and others quite fast. It gripped me from the opening gust of rain on a dark night to Feste dancing off into the sunset. Grappling with Shakespeare is a perilous activity but I thought Trevor Nunn brought out the comedy and the emotions of the story well. It is a film to make you smile at the follies of mankind but also their charm.

Ben Kingsley is amazing. I've never seen Feste played that way but it seemed perfect. Imogen Stubbs does the comedy and the drama equally well. The scene with Orsino in the bathtub is a stock one but she does it beautifully, balancing the humour of the situation with the tenderness and the longing. Imelda Staunton brings unusual depth to the character of Maria. The rest of the cast are great too.

The text of the play is changed around but not unnaturally so. The scene that cuts between Feste's song and Viola/Cesario and Orsino playing cards is wonderful, taking in eight of the characters and telling you more about them. The last act of the play is difficult to stage well but Nunn gives it a good shot.

The Cornwall setting is lovely, the radiant sunshine, the green leaves and fine buildings are captured gorgeously by the cameras. I also liked the music very much and find some of the tunes quite hummable.

Very enjoyable and worth seeing again and again.

A lively, bubbly production of one of Shakespeare's more difficult plays. It's hard to know just what Shakespeare was getting at with this story. The text doesn't always seem to make sense. That's reflected in this, as well as any other, production. At times, one wonders what the expressions on characters' faces are meant to indicate. Just after Feste has fooled Malvolio with his imitation of the curate, for instance, Maria has a perturbed look on her face. As if the joke that she herself so elaborately designed now troubles her. There's nothing in the text to indicate that her expression should show remorse; and yet Sir Toby soon after says that he's sick of the whole thing. Why? That's one example of the difficulty of the text (which may have been corrupted over the centuries), and how it is manifested in this particular production's choices. I don't know why Sir Toby remarks at this point that he's sick of the joke, nor do I know whether Maria should share his feelings.

Another difficulty is the role of Feste. Ben Kingsley fills this role, and because Ben Kingsley is a major star, he magnifies this character (in my opinion) out of all proportion. He becomes a sort of Zen master, pompous and oppressive. His jokes aren't funny (maybe we can't find Shakespeare's jokes funny today, but Kingsley's heavy delivery precludes humor), and his last confrontation with Malvolio comes off as a sort of thundering divine retribution. The entire play, the entire cast, stops dead and Feste takes over as if the whole point of the play has been his apotheosis at the expense of the degraded Malvolio. This surely cannot be what Shakespeare had in mind. Throughout the play he has a disconcerting habit of staring at other characters or the camera with what almost be described as a leer.

Maybe Shakespeare would have sighed and commiserated with the producer of this film, because the clowns in his day were also big stars who demanded a lot of meat in their roles. The trouble is that there just isn't much meat in Feste's role according to the text, so we're stuck with leers and thundering retribution and other inventions. Shakespeare had to accommodate his clowns with ever-more important roles, climaxing with characters like Touchstone and Lear's fool. Kingsley is just inventing his own character. At times his work is interesting, but his weight in the production is, as I said, oppressive.

Still, his screen time is relatively small, and much of the rest of the play is a joy, even if the point of the story isn't always clear. Bonham-Carter was never more alluring, Hawthorne is priceless as Malvolio (he was born for the role), and Smith and Grant are the perfect combination of Belch and Aguecheek. I suppose you might object that all four of them put their eyebrows to such prodigious use that their acting might be characterized as hamming. But I don't see how any of these characters can be played straight if the play is to work.

One thing is for sure, no one would ever accuse this production of bogging down. The pace is lively, the sets and the cinematography are always striking, the score is invigorating, and I suspect that I could watch this film dubbed in Swahili and it would still be a lot of fun. Visually arresting is perhaps the best description.

At one time adaptors of Shakespeare for the cinema trended to concentrate more on his tragedies and history plays rather than his comedies. The 1990s, however, saw two very fine adaptations of Shakespearean comedies, Kenneth Branagh's "Much Ado about Nothing" and Trevor Nunn's "Twelfth Night".

"Twelfth Night" is another name for the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6th, and the action of the play is supposed to take place around that date. Nunn, however, did not shoot this film in winter but in autumn; filming actually took place in November, but the crew were mostly lucky with the weather and the look of the countryside might suggest late September or early October. Although the setting is still officially "Illyria", an old name for Croatia, Nunn effectively updates the action to Victorian England. The film was shot on location in Cornwall, with St Michael's Mount standing in for Orsino's palace and Lanhydrock for Olivia's mansion.

Unlike his contemporary Marlowe in "Edward II", Shakespeare never dealt directly with the subject of homosexuality, but "Twelfth Night" is perhaps the play in which he came closest to dealing with it by implication. The plot revolves around a curious love-triangle, A loves B, who loves C, who loves A. Orsino, Duke of Illyria, is in love with the beautiful countess Olivia. She, however, has no interest in Orsino, but has fallen for "Cesario", the handsome young man whom Orsino uses as his go-between. Unknown to both Orsino and Olivia, however, the supposed "Cesario" is really a disguised woman, Viola- who has fallen in love with her employer. An extra complication- and a possible solution to the problem- arises when Viola's identical twin brother Sebastian, whom she previously believed to be dead, arrives on the scene. (Yes, I know that in reality you cannot have identical opposite-sex twins, but Shakespearean comedies are not noted for their strict realism).

The lesbian overtones to the Olivia/Viola relationship would probably have been rather muted in Shakespeare's day when all female roles would have been played by boys, but here Helena Bonham-Carter and Imogen Stubbs (the director's wife) make the most of them. Even with the assistance of a quasi-military uniform and a false moustache, the lovely Imogen never looks particularly masculine, so there is an implication that Olivia has fallen for someone she consciously believes to be male but subconsciously knows to be female. The gay overtones to the relationship between Toby Stephens' Orsino and "Cesario", and to that between Sebastian and Antonio, the sea-captain who has befriended him, are perhaps even stronger. Certainly, Orsino's conversations with "Cesario" seem remarkably intimate if he really does believe his young companion to be male.

Along with the likes of "Much Ado…" and "As You Like It", "Twelfth Night" is sometimes described as a "joyous" comedy in contradistinction to more "problematic" comedies like "Measure for Measure" and "All's Well that Ends Well". It does, however, have its darker side; several characters, for example, have recently suffered bereavement, or believe themselves to have done so, and this production tends to stress the darkness underlying the play. The autumnal setting contributes to this feeling, as does the fact that most of the characters are seen dressed in black.

The dark overtones are particularly pronounced in the sub-plot involving Olivia's steward, Malvolio. He is sometimes played simply as a narrow- minded Puritan and his adversary Sir Toby as a jovial, lovable old man whose only concern is to have his "cakes and ale". For Nunn, however, matters are not so simple. Nigel Hawthorne's Malvolio- the one character for whom there is no happy ending- is an essentially tragic figure, a dignified and dedicated servant who is tricked into making a fool of himself by a gang of people who have taken an irrational dislike to him. His name is derived from the Italian for "ill will", yet its significance here may be that Malvolio is not so much the perpetrator of malice as the victim of the malice of others.

There is an excellent performance from Mel Smith, better known as a television comedian, as Sir Toby. Smith brings out both the nastiness and the sadness which lie at the heart of his character. Sir Toby is a man of wealth and noble family (he is Olivia's uncle) who has spent his whole life in feasting, drinking and womanising and who has a fondness for cruel practical jokes; besides his tricking of Malvolio he dupes his friend Andrew Aguecheek and "Cesario" into fighting a duel. (Both acquit themselves surprisingly well, given that one is really a woman and the other an arrant coward). Yet there is also an implied sadness about Smith's characterisation; Toby knows that his life has been a wasted one, but feels that it is too late to amend.

Besides Hawthorne and Smith there are too many good contributions to single them all out individually. I must, however, mention Stubbs, who is able to suggest both a male persona and the underlying woman, and Ben Kingsley as Olivia's jester Feste, whom he plays less as a clown than as a sardonic old philosopher, an eccentric but also a man gifted with penetrating insights into human life.

"Twelfth Night" is one of Shakespeare's best-known comedies, and like all well-known Shakespeare plays it has become very familiar in the theatre. A good director, however, whether in the theatre or on screen, will always be able to find something new to say about it, and that is what Nunn has done here. He and his cast have found new insights into this great play, enabling us to see it with new eyes. An excellent production. 9/10

Trevor Nunn's beautifully photographed and acted, deftly written film is one of the most enjoyable adaptations of a Shakespeare play ever made. Helena Bonham Carter is pitch perfect as the beautiful Olivia, who in "deep mourning" for her dead brother, falls in love with Cesario (who happens to be a woman named Viola dressed up as a man, wonderfully played by Imogen Stubbs, the only actress I've ever seen able to create both a charming Viola and a totally believable Cesario), meanwhile Viola falls for the Duke of fictional Illyria (the exquisite Toby Stephens) who is desperately in love with the Lady Olivia. Meanwhile, Viola's lost twin brother (Steven Mackintosh of "Gentlemen Don't Eat Poets", excellent again here) winds up in Illyria and adds to the confusion. Wonderful, layered support comes from Ben Kingsley playing Feste, Olivia's fool. The only flaw, perhaps, is the few minutes before the conclusion when everything seems to be coated with a thick gloss of sugar; the film comes through this unscathed. Trevor Nunn comes through with an exquisite Shakespeare film adaptation (which is a do or die task). A great showcase for the heavenly cast featuring some of the best performances ever by Bonham Carter (save "Wings of the Dove"), Kingsley (in his best supporting turn ever), novice Stubbs, and Stephens. A very worthwhile effort. Rent it, you won't be let down.