Rating: 
Summary: Pigs In Zen
Review: I'm a cheap date when it comes to Jarman. For me, the man could do no wrong. Yet personal bias aside, this is truly a classic and inspired interpretation of the Bard's last and most haunting work.'Canst thou remember a time before we came unto this cell?', asks the banished enchanter Prospero of his daughter Miranda. The cell being the key. The Tempest takes place in a Moorcockian artificially-sustained reality, such as in Michael's Dancers At The End Of Time and The New World's Fair. It is this essential element that Jarman captures so brilliantly, adding to the unreality by a number of techniques, such as the use of coloured filters and by placing his anarchic, wacked-out cast in a Gothic setting. The Island - the cell - is our individual sense of identity and reality, and in a fascinating interpretation which brushes the cheek of Zen and the Baghavad Gita, Jarman reveals that there is no mutant enemy, except ourselves.
Rating: 
Summary: A cozy dream for exiled dreamers
Review: Ken Russell's designer on The Devils and Savage Messiah, the late Derek Jarman, made one of my favorite movies out of Shakespeare's most fanciful, yet most forgiving, play. Jarman makes a virtue of his tiny budget, having learned much from his former director about how to stretch one: the shadows, fireplaces, dust and antique clutter of Stoneleigh Abbey make a cozy and believable home in exile for Prospero, for whom "my library was dukedom enough," and for his fond daughter Miranda, who dances and play-acts around the vast, shabby manor like any imaginative child who hasn't known anything else, nor any reason to be ashamed of it. The mood is intimate and vespertine (in the Bjork sense); and for once, clutter is not the symptom of a lowlife or a loser, but the habit of a wistful, brilliant man absorbed in his studies and contemplation. For this alone, I recommend the film to anyone who ever felt like an innocent exile, a misunderstood artist or dreamer. I also recommend it if you enjoy radical approaches to Shakespeare. Jarman's vision succeeds nearly everywhere, aided by superb casting. Hippie-hairy Heathcote Williams and the pleasantly zaftig Toyah Willcox are a warm and very appealing father and daughter, the ectomorphic Karl Johnson an Ariel with his own dreams to dream when not subduing resentment at his slavery to Prospero, and the bald, lisping, leering Jack Birkett nearly stealing the movie as an alarming, grotesque Caliban whose own wide-eyed pleasure in the "thousand twangling instruments" of the isle, with its "sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not" is as strangely winning as his hostility and vulgarity have been repulsive. Jarman's customary homoerotic elements work well and add another dimension to the play, as he contrasts Caliban's baseness not with Ariel's loftier sensibilities but with Miranda's moral innocence; while Miranda's *sexual* innocence is contrasted with Ariel's resignation to postponing his own desires, shown when he enchants and sings over the totally naked Ferdinand but otherwise leaves him alone. Stephano and Trinculo are flamboyantly queer, donning masks and costumed frippery not, like other characters, to symbolize dissembling in a straight society, but in drunken frolic as they plot to overthrow Caliban's master. (This is how Jarman delivers what an earlier reviewer here felt was missing, the "alternative realities.") Jarman's tone of melancholy lifting culminates in musical comedy star Elisabeth Welch's rendition of "Stormy Weather". It works. The play is heavily cut, but could have benefited from more cutting, as Caliban is not made to look in any way fishlike, but Stephano and Trinculo still talk as though he is; Prospero looks forward to going home, where "every third thought shall be my grave" even though the actor was only 38; and Miranda's exclamation "O brave new world, that has such people in it!" sounds ridiculous when referring to the underrehearsed chorus line of rather fey sailors doing a silly dance that goes on too long. Representing Prospero's servant spirits with dwarves works fine, except Jarman's technique is not skillful enough to convey the menace of their assault on Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian. Jarman's technique would fully mature in his film of Edward II. Although it was praised by English critics, The Tempest is an obscure little foreign art film, and has not been remastered in any way. The "extras" include the original presskit text, plus three short films that look like static landscape shots in Super8mm, and are of no interest except to Jarman scholars.
Rating:
Summary: A cozy dream for exiled dreamers
Review: Ken Russell's designer on The Devils and Savage Messiah, the late Derek Jarman, made one of my favorite movies out of Shakespeare's most fanciful, yet most forgiving, play. Jarman makes a virtue of his tiny budget, having learned much from his former director about how to stretch one: the shadows, fireplaces, dust and antique clutter of Stoneleigh Abbey make a cozy and believable home in exile for Prospero, for whom "my library was dukedom enough," and for his fond daughter Miranda, who dances and play-acts around the vast, shabby manor like any imaginative child who hasn't known anything else, nor any reason to be ashamed of it. The mood is intimate and vespertine (in the Bjork sense); and for once, clutter is not the symptom of a lowlife or a loser, but the habit of a wistful, brilliant man absorbed in his studies and contemplation. For this alone, I recommend the film to anyone who ever felt like an innocent exile, a misunderstood artist or dreamer. I also recommend it if you enjoy radical approaches to Shakespeare. Jarman's vision succeeds nearly everywhere, aided by superb casting. Hippie-hairy Heathcote Williams and the pleasantly zaftig Toyah Willcox are a warm and very appealing father and daughter, the ectomorphic Karl Johnson an Ariel with his own dreams to dream when not subduing resentment at his slavery to Prospero, and the bald, lisping, leering Jack Birkett nearly stealing the movie as an alarming, grotesque Caliban whose own wide-eyed pleasure in the "thousand twangling instruments" of the isle, with its "sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not" is as strangely winning as his hostility and vulgarity have been repulsive. Jarman's customary homoerotic elements work well and add another dimension to the play, as he contrasts Caliban's baseness not with Ariel's loftier sensibilities but with Miranda's moral innocence; while Miranda's *sexual* innocence is contrasted with Ariel's resignation to postponing his own desires, shown when he enchants and sings over the totally naked Ferdinand but otherwise leaves him alone. Stephano and Trinculo are flamboyantly queer, donning masks and costumed frippery not, like other characters, to symbolize dissembling in a straight society, but in drunken frolic as they plot to overthrow Caliban's master. (This is how Jarman delivers what an earlier reviewer here felt was missing, the "alternative realities.") Jarman's tone of melancholy lifting culminates in musical comedy star Elisabeth Welch's rendition of "Stormy Weather". It works. The play is heavily cut, but could have benefited from more cutting, as Caliban is not made to look in any way fishlike, but Stephano and Trinculo still talk as though he is; Prospero looks forward to going home, where "every third thought shall be my grave" even though the actor was only 38; and Miranda's exclamation "O brave new world, that has such people in it!" sounds ridiculous when referring to the underrehearsed chorus line of rather fey sailors doing a silly dance that goes on too long. Representing Prospero's servant spirits with dwarves works fine, except Jarman's technique is not skillful enough to convey the menace of their assault on Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian. Jarman's technique would fully mature in his film of Edward II. Although it was praised by English critics, The Tempest is an obscure little foreign art film, and has not been remastered in any way. The "extras" include the original presskit text, plus three short films that look like static landscape shots in Super8mm, and are of no interest except to Jarman scholars.
Rating: 
Summary: captivating imagery, mediocre acting
Review: Seeing Shakespeare adapted to film always thrills me, as long as the scriptwriter preserves Shakespeare's unmatchable linguistic phrasing. Jarman does preserve Shakespeare's words, though not always their order or their speaker. I have no problem granting liberal artistic license to most literary adaptations but, since Shakespeare leaves so few guidelines in the form of stage directions I have some trouble understanding why his adaptors wouldn't want to stick faithfully to Shakespeare's conception of his plays, which allows for so much individual interpretation as it stands. Jarman makes some cuts that I don't understand, such as that of the very funny scene in which Trinulco drunkenly mistakes Stephano and Caliban huddled together as a two-headed monster, and some cuts of which I approve, such as that of the nearly unintelligable "wedding" scene. He also elongates and adds emphasis to the scene in which Stephano, Caliban, and Trinulco steal from Prospero, which I think adds his signature to the film more than any other scene in its homoerotic interpretation of acting. The most enjoyable of Jarman's interpretations, I found to be his visual representation of Prospero's magic with a beautiful and captivating array of white candles, mystical crystals, and white chalk scribblings of strange symbols and geometric patterns. The acting is overall rather mediocre, as most of the actors speak every line with weighty ponderance, as if all of Shakespeare is meant to be taken in stiff seriousness. The only truly convincing performance is that of Alonso, King of Naples, who talks of the son he presumes dead with heavy sadness but of sleeping with a tone that conveys the mundanity of such lines. Ferdinand, however, seems equally distant and dejected when he speaks of Prospero's cruelty and of Miranda's beauty. Overall, this is well worth watching for fans of the Bard or of Jarman's cinematic style.
Rating:
Summary: Uneven Avant-Garde Production
Review: This low budget movie retains Shakespeare's language and some startling as well as disturbing interpretations of his play. Prospero's cave is a gothic mansion. Ariel is a deadpan, rather grim butler ala Joel Grey in Cabaret. Caliban resembles an escaped lunatic complete with maniacal laughter. Nevertheless all the characters despite their departure from more traditional depictions are well acted and worth watching. Miranda in particular has more brains and pluck in this production than the simpering waif she is often portrayed to be. The play drags on where Jarmon cut a lot of the poetry in favor of more scenes of the characters traipsing about the mansion. Such scenes become monotonous about halfway through the movie. Film is unrated but contains several scenes of full frontal nudity as well as a particularly disturbing vision of an adult Caliban suckling a nude, obese Sycorax. As a teacher of English, seleced scenes were worth showing to my ninth grade class but the film was too monotonous, and contained too much perversity to show in its entirety.
Rating:
Summary: Uneven Avant-Garde Production
Review: This low budget movie retains Shakespeare's language and some startling as well as disturbing interpretations of his play. Prospero's cave is a gothic mansion. Ariel is a deadpan, rather grim butler ala Joel Grey in Cabaret. Caliban resembles an escaped lunatic complete with maniacal laughter. Nevertheless all the characters despite their departure from more traditional depictions are well acted and worth watching. Miranda in particular has more brains and pluck in this production than the simpering waif she is often portrayed to be. The play drags on where Jarmon cut a lot of the poetry in favor of more scenes of the characters traipsing about the mansion. Such scenes become monotonous about halfway through the movie. Film is unrated but contains several scenes of full frontal nudity as well as a particularly disturbing vision of an adult Caliban suckling a nude, obese Sycorax. As a teacher of English, seleced scenes were worth showing to my ninth grade class but the film was too monotonous, and contained too much perversity to show in its entirety.
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