Reviews edited by Mark Adams
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REVIEWS
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Coriolanus REVIEWED BY LEE MARSHALL
The main achievement of Ralph Fiennes’ impres- sive first foray into direction is the vindication of his claim (and that of scriptwriter and adaptor John Logan) that Shakepeare’s late tragedy Cori- olanus, often dismissed as one of the Bard’s more flawed and problematic works, is in fact a complex character study which is brimful of contemporary relevance. Recasting the play’s action in a present day
‘Rome’ which bears little resemblance to the Eter- nal City and instead seems a war-ravaged Balkan state, and putting several of Shakespeare’s lines in the mouths of TV news presenters, Fiennes draws out the play’s central theme of political pragmatism. Coriolanus is a war hero turned politician who
refuses to sweet-talk the plebs, and the film’s mise en scene encourages the audience to make their own connections to today’s videocracies and to the phalanx of spin doctors, press flaks and voice coaches which trail along behind those politicians who need to display the common touch. In this, of course, it is not exactly breaking new
ground: Richard Loncraine’s tasty 1995 Richard III showed how one of Shakespeare’s ‘military’ plays could be updated and loaded with modern signifi- cance, and Baz Luhrmann gave lines to TV anchor- men in Romeo + Juliet. So despite the relevance of these modernising strategies here, audiences with
n 8 Screen International in Berlin February 15, 2011 COMPETITION
UK. 2010. 122mins Director Ralph Fiennes Production companies Artemis Films, Hemetof Pictures, BBC Films, Lonely Dragon International sales Icon Entertainment Int’l, www.
icon-entertainment.co.uk Producers Ralph Fiennes, John Logan, Gabrielle Tana, Julia Taylor-Stanley, Colin Vaines Screenplay John Logan, based on the play by William Shakespeare Cinematography Barry Ackroyd Production designer Ricky Eyres Editor Nic Gaster Music Ilan Eshkeri Main cast Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Chastain, John Kani, James Nesbitt, Paul Jesson
an appetite for Shakespeare may experience just a little deja-vu. Pitching straight into the action, the film opens
with a montage of TV news reports broadcast by a certain ‘Fidelis TV’ but identical in their style and logos to BBC World bulletins (well-known UK news anchorman Jon Snow even gets to deliver some of the Bard’s lines, as if reporting on break- ing news). We learn that the common people are unhappy with their lot, but when they storm the city’s central grain depot, general Caius Martius (Fiennes) is there to meet them — shaven-headed, tattooed, radiating aggression, soldierly pride and contempt for the rabble. Soon, having turned back the mob in a way not
calculated to improve their already low opinion of him as an arrogant and undemocratic enforcer, he is back in his real element — in the field, taking a town called Corioli from a group of Volscian free- dom fighters led by honourable guerilla general Tullus Aufidius (Butler). Back at home, meanwhile, Caius’ steely mother
Volumnia (Redgrave) tells the soldier’s tender- hearted wife Virgilia (Chastain) that far from fret- ting for her husband she should be happy he has yet another chance to cover himself in military glory. The relationship between Volumnia and her son is one of those borderline-perverse mother complexes that Shakespeare loved to explore, and the script runs with it engagingly; one of the film’s many well-judged decisions is to make Volumnia
not a cold monster but a proud father-mother, utterly dedicated to her son’s military career; Red- grave carries the role with her usual passion and panache. Returning to Rome, Caius is given the honorific
title ‘Coriolanus’ for his victory at Corioli by a grateful Roman senate — all besuited politicians apart from the high-ranking army-general presi- dent (Kani) — and he is congratulated by wily senator and family friend Menenius (Brian Cox, well cast). All seems set for the soldier-hero’s elec- tion as consul; but Coriolanus’ barely-disguised contempt for lazy, easily-swayed civilians is exploited by ambitious young tribune Sicinius (Nesbitt) and his older party colleague Brutus (Jesson), and in a live televised ‘trial’, Coriolanus is sentenced to exile by popular vote (the Big Brother parallels are not pushed here, merely hinted at). Music is sparse and military, colours wintery or
dark, with much use of firelight and shadow to further complicate our attitudes towards Coriola- nus. Fiennes rises fully to the challenge of the role: petulant, brave, arrogant, loyal only (to an almost homoerotic extent) to fellow soldiers, but fatally in thrall to his stronger mother, he disproves finally one of the play’s and film’s best lines: that there is no “milk in a male tiger”.
SCREEN SCORE ★★★
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