A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Bard and the Royal Shakespeare Company fight the Swinging '60s to a respectable draw in this production, which does feature nearly all of the text of the play, splendidly _ if often frenetically _ delivered. Director Peter Hall couldn't quite come up with a film equivalent of his famous stage production, which featured modern dress, a stark white set, and imaginative use of trapezes. Instead he picked an approach heavily influenced by the French New Wave and its English imitators, notably Richard Lester. There's lots of jangly, abrupt editing _ which sometimes, as intended, captures the supernatural flitting of the fairies, and sometimes is just annoying. There's lots of talking to the camera, and a certain catch-as-catch-can attitude: shots don't match up, and, although the main action is supposed to take place at night, there's sometimes no effort to disguise the sunlight streaming through the trees. (Of course, perhaps some of this was the result not of artistic decisions, but merely of haste and a tiny budget.) It's somehow a very '60s Athens _ Hermia and Helena wear cute miniskirts, the four lovers get so twig-torn and mud-spattered that they look like refugees from Woodstock, and the fairies look like green-skinned members of a back-to-nature commune. For all the eccentricities, this festive but haunting play is done straight and done well, and the cast ranges from solid to splendid. The two standouts are Diana Rigg (Helena) and Judi Dench (Titania) _ and this is your one and only chance to see the former sucking her thumb and the latter wearing an outfit (consisting mainly of body paint and flecks of vegetation) that Blaze Starr might have found drafty.

Yes, it's clear that director Peter Hall was influenced by Richard Lester in his filming of Shakespeare's classic comedy/fantasy: the hand-held camera, jump cutting, etc. And while one could quibble with some of his derivative directorial choices, there's no arguing that this is the best-acted "Dream" on film available.

There's hardly a weak link in the cast, with the exception of David Warner and Michael Jayston as the male half of the quartet of lovers. Warner is a skilled classical actor, but he never had an ounce of charm. Jayston is competent, but dull and colorless.

But the rest of the cast is marvelous, with special kudos to Helen Mirren, Diana Rigg, Ian Richardson, and Judi Dench as a very sexy Titania. Ian Holm's snake-tongue bit as Puck gets old, but his somewhat malevolent rendition of Puck is well done.

I'm surprised that no one has made more out of Paul Rodgers superb Bottom, by far the best I've ever seen on stage or screen. Unlike so many actors who broadly overplay the role to wring laughs, Rodgers plays Bottom completely straight and with total conviction - never descending to self-conscious comedic playing. And he's all the more hilarious for it. This Pyramus and Thisbee playlet at the end is the funniest ever.

This is not only the best version of the play available on film, it is easily one of the five best Shakespearian films of all (at least in English).

The fact that it was made on less than a shoestring budget is totally irrelevant. Whether or not there are any special effects, the photography by the renowned Peter Suschitzky ("Dead Ringers", "Empire Strikes Back", "Spider") is excellent. It's not only pictorial, but contributes greatly to the spontaneous, irreverent, slapstick-esquire approach to the whole production, which Peter Hall and his marvelous actors worked so hard to achieve. The locations are also ideal, given the modernized, anglicized look of the production.

Director Hall's interpretation of the play comes as close to 'perfection' as an enthusiast of the Bard could possibly ask for. He refuses to reduce the play to an erotic fantasy, as so many other have done (i.e. the 1999 film), and he rejects the even more common temptation to turn it into a loud, garish costume-ball. In other word, Hall presents the play as Shekespeare wrote it.It relies for its appeal on marvelous words and gestures, not on costumes and special effects.

As for the cast, one only need to look at the big names on the list to see that this production was literally one-of-a-kind. Actually the least famous major player in this company is the one most worthy of note: Paul Rogers, a wonderful character actor and a frequent collaborator of Alec Guinness, is quite possibly the best Bottom that most of us (in this day and age) are ever likely to see. Both Cagney and Kevin Kline were terrific in the major films, but Paul Rogers IS Bottom.

It says something about both film audiences and readers that the 1935 Warner Bros. film with James Cagney is rated more highly on the IMDb than this production. In that pretty but vapid collection of songs and dances, you could hardly hear any of Shakespeare's words, and if you could you would have to cringe, since almost none of the actors could adequately speak the lines. Cagney was good, but the rest was silence. GO WITH THIS VERSION INSTEAD! Fortunately, it was recently made available on DVD.

A fine, and sadly forgotten, version of Shakespeare's most amusing play. I suppose I am not the only male person who discovered a simultaneous love for the Bard and Diana Rigg in what was (then) a scandalously scantily clad television spectacular. This is, if nothing else, one of the many evidences that the Brits breed actors in a way we don't. The cast, which is by British standards only second-tier, outdoes anything that we could scrape together. Sheer fun; it's us, and not just Shakespeare, in love.

I originally expected to watch a few seconds of this and turn to another channel; however, the film style intrigued me, so I kept watching. Then, I saw Titania...

She was beautiful. Her acting was sublime. The enthusiasm she had for the ass-headed Bottom was palpable. I had to tape it. Fortunately, there was another showing later in the day.

To my surprise, the beautiful Titania was none other than a youngish Judy Dench. Diana Rigg also appears as Helena, the spurned lover, who joins three other young people for the familiar comedy of errors.

Besides the fairies, the actors dress in modern garb...casual: Button-up shirts, mini-skirts, go go boots. The acting is wonderful and the choppy editing very appropriate. Was it as good as Propero's Books? No, but it gives it a run for its money...