473 - A Midsummer Night's Dream, UK/Italy/US, 1999. Dir. Michael Hoffman.

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

473 - A Midsummer Night's Dream, UK/Italy/US, 1999.  Dir. Michael Hoffman.

William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream is a magical, mystical, enchanting, spellbinding, lighthearted, whimsical, delightful romp through the mysterious forests of romantic love.

Unfortunately, this movie is not.

When you watch it, you find yourself wondering where the chemistry went.  Perhaps director Michael Hoffman left it back in his high school chem lab.

Or maybe he just skipped chemistry class altogether.

The movie has moments.  But it takes effort to watch it.  It is maddeningly uneven, and it gets off to an inauspicious start from the opening title cards.

It begins with an epigraph consisting of two paragraphs.

"The village of Monte Athena in Italy at the turn of the 19th century.  Necklines are high.  Parents are rigid.  Marriage is seldom a matter of love."

Not great writing.  And not really the point of the play.  Here we learn that Hoffman has moved the setting from Athens to a fictional Monte Athena in Tuscany.  And he changes the time period to the 19th century, a couple hundred years after Shakespeare.  Why?  We do not know.  Sometimes directors change a Shakespearean setting and it works out well.  Here it seems arbitrary.  It does not make any difference.

But the second statement--

"The good news: The bustle is in its decline, allowing for the meteoric rise of that newfangled creation, the bicycle."

What?

What does that mean and why insert it at the beginning of a Shakespearean comedy?  What is a bustle?  Commotion and hubbub?  That would be the opposite of the statement.  A framework in the back of a dress?  That makes more sense.  Women can ride now.  But what does that have to do with anything?

But before we understand the fuss over the bicycle, Felix Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream crescendos to a climax as the sun rises over the landscape and the title bursts onto the screen, built by fireflies and exploding into butterflies.

Wait.  Why is our heart supposed to be enraptured?  We are still scratching our heads over the odd statements thrust upon us.  Are we supposed to be that excited about a bustle and a bicycle?

Before we can figure it out, we immediately cut to some awkward camera movements featuring extras at work preparing for what we will learn is a wedding.  And it all feels very staged--like going to a play where the director is proud of pageantry and wants to show off how much clutter he can put in front of you.  No one seems to be preparing for a wedding.  They just seem to be doing busy work for the camera.

And it is done with bullet points.

Table cloths.  Check.
Awnings.  Check.
Chairs.  Check.
Leeks.  Check.
Flowers.  Check.
Tomatoes.  Check.
Radishes.  Check.
Pheasants.  Check.
That extra slapping knife blades together as if he is sharpening them, but he does not really know how to sharpen them and is not really trying to.  Check.
Let us pour some sauce over some meat roasting over a fire.  Check.
Look!  A swan!  We might just eat that.  Check.
Little people putting the silver into a potato sack to steal it.  Check.
Kneading dough.  Check.
Two men carrying a boiling pot with steam coming out through the lid.  Check.
One of the little people carrying the cornucopia horn--or is that a Victrola speaker?--to the cart to steal with the silver.  Right out in the open because everyone is too busy to notice.  Check.

And then that moment at the fountain.  When one of the extras thinks that this is his chance to make his feature film debut.  Four men are cleaning the fountain and a fifth walks by.  Well, actually, they are not really cleaning the fountain.  They are just moving long-pole scoops up and down without purpose.  As extras sometimes do.  Two men are standing in the fountain; one is on the far side; and one on the near side.  The one on the near side has decided that he is engaged in an argument with the others.  Only he has neglected to send them the memo.  He gestures with his right arm, arguing with the other extras, who do not notice him.  He gets bigger and bigger.  Finally, the man at the far end notices him and reacts.  Our man, who looks like an older, heavyset Robert Duvall (and before you say, "Older?" remember this is 1999) turns and does that thing where he pinches his fingertips to his thumb, points them back at his face, and flips his hand at the wrist so that we will all know that he is Italian.  Then he walks out of frame with great importance.  Except for the split second where he breaks character to look down to see where he is going.  All the while there is nothing to be frustrated by.  They are just cleaning the fountain.  Or at least poking it with their long-pole scoops.

But wait.  You are not off the hook yet.  We are not finished with the opening credits, so we have more montage to go.

Hors d'oeuvres on a pair of tiered serving stands.  Check.
A tracking shot across the length of the long table.  Check.
A shot of David Straithern as Theseus looking out over his estate and beholding its glory.  But not really in character yet.  Check.
An overhead shot of the gardens with about a dozen servants bustling about.  (Are you sure the bustle is in its decline?)  Check.
Foley of bird sounds.  Mendelssohn still playing.  Check.
Cut back to Straithern having a thought, tapping his fingers, looking behind him, deciding something, and picking up a light-enough-pink-to-be-cream rose from a conveniently placed flower pot on the parapet next to him.  But NOT ACTUALLY IN LOVE.  Check.
Sophie Marceau as Hippolyta picking at her fingernails and pining as she starts a record on the Victrola.  Oh, look.  There is the Victrola speaker.  Still in its place on the record player.  I guess that was the cornucopia horn that the little person stole after all.  Check.
Tilt up to her face.  She too is NOT ACTUALLY IN LOVE.  Straithern surprises her with the rose.  She stands.  Smiles.  He awkwardly puts his left arm around her as if they only had enough time for one quick blocking rehearsal before shooting--and one wonders if they had even met each other before shooting--and a maid walks by just as he begins to recite his lines.  We jib back, dolly over, track behind some orange trees as he walks her over to a spot where they can be alone.  He tries to kiss her as he says lines that mean that he is so in love with her that can hardly stand it any more, but he stands there saying it as if someone is holding a gun to his lower back and demanding that he recite some Shakespeare or lose his life.  Check.
She pulls back from the kiss and argues that their wedding is only four days away, and he can wait.  She ends the last line on an up pitch as if she is asking a question, as if she is unsure of whether she means it or not--or whether she even knows what the words mean in the first place.  Or not.  Check.

Would it have killed them to understand their lines first?  And developed some sort of love between them?

We start to agree with him.  The two hours ahead of us already feel as if they are going to be an eternity.  Let alone the four days he has to wait until their wedding.

Maybe we should eat the swan.

Or steal the silver.

Or walk out of the theater pretending we are Italian.

With all the feeling that these two pieces of cardboard feel for each other, why even bother to have the wedding in the first place?

Alfred Hitchcock claims that an actor once asked him what his motivation should be, and Hitch said, "Your paycheck."

Unfortunately, as you watch this scene, you believe that the paycheck was exactly the motivation driving these two actors in these roles.  Action.  Cut.  Check.

Finally the "Directed by" credit passes, and we can get on with the movie.  If we are still here.

This is too bad, because I really like David Straithern.  In his first film as a young man, a directed by his college friend John Sayles, Return of the Secaucus Seven (a movie given its title apparently for the purpose of discouraging people from seeing it), he shows that he has talent and the potential to be a star.  A few of the other actors went on to have careers but many of them did not.  But he distinguished himself so clearly from the rest of the group that he set himself up for a great career.

Sometimes he is asked to play a self-important, self-righteous bore (partly because he has the potential for gravitas).  But when he is given character work to do, he can really shine.  Watch him as Tom Cruise's brother Ray McDeere in The Firm (1993) or as that great character Pierce Patchett in that fabulous movie L. A. Confidential (1997), and you will love him.  Oh, wow.  He is so good.  And he has a long string of great roles on his resume.

Did you know that David Straithern studied at the Ringling Bros. Clown College in Sarasota, Florida?  If only he had put some of that into this role.  After all, this is Shakespeare's most lighthearted of comedies.  He could trip on his feet as he trips from his tongue.

But despite all this, we at least believe that Straithern has the intelligence, the capacity, and the stamina to play Shakespeare.  We just do not believe he was ready.  The film feels rushed.  It seems as though the director filmed the film before the actors had time to fully develop their characters.  As if he came in from another project and started filming without finding this one first.

But there are other actors here who seem completely out of their league.  Over their heads.  Drowning.  As though they cannot even get the words out of their mouths, let alone understand them.  As if all the time in the world is not going to help them get any better.

But have no fear.  Stanley Tucci and Kevin Cline are here.  And they keep the film from collapsing.

Tucci makes the perfect Puck.  Reclining in his well-designed make-up and prosthetics, looking so comfortable in his own skin, so sure of himself, so in charge of the minions over whom he presides.  He has played so many great characters in so many great movies.  From Secondo in the cooking film Big Night (1996) (co-directing himself) to Nigel in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) to Caesar Flickerman in The Hunger Games series.  Has there ever been anyone more confident and relaxed?

And Kevin Kline does what Kevin Kline does.  He embodies Nick Bottom, wanting to play all the roles.  And he tries.  And he does.  And he makes you laugh.

When the film moves from the town to the woods it gets better.

One could easily watch it and be entertained by it.  Especially late at night after a couple of drinks.

And I have hope that I will like it again when I see it again.

After all, Stanley Tucci himself has asked me to.

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
Wile these visions did appear. . . .
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend.

Yes, Puck, I have slumbered here.  For sure.  But I will pardon so that you may mend.

So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

OK, Puck.  Here is my hand.  We are friends.  I trust you will restore amends.  When I see it again, I will write an amended blog.


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Hey, this is fun.  Look at the magical characters in the cast.

Fairies.  Nymphs.  Dwarves.  Furies.  Female Monster.  Janus Figures.  Fawns.  Satyrs.  Sphinxes.  Winged Men.  Forge Man.  Medusa.  Goat-Headed Creature.  Wedding Musicians.

Can you distinguish among all those creatures?

And if you are a wedding musician, well, apparently this is the company you keep!