Shakespeare (1610): The Tempest

Shakespeare (1610): The Tempest

1. Julie Taymor (2010): The Tempest (US)

   • Best Costume (Academy Award nomination)
     • The costumes make heavy use of zippers in replacement of gold braides; Silver-metal zippers were folded, or accordion pleated, to create Elizabethan-ruff collars; courtly looks created with biker boots and metal studs adorn many characters' doublets.
       • Effect: Elizabethan punk; avant-garde (& keep the film's costs down)
   • Change in Protagonist's Gender
     • Female protagonist because director couldn't find a suitable male (Source: Wikipedia)
     • In Shakespeare's play, Prospero was the Duke of Milan. In the adaptation, Prospera is the wife of the Duke. She is "more overtly wronged" than Prospero; when the duke dies, Prospera's brother Antonio (played by Chris Cooper) accuses her of killing him with witchcraft. Antonio makes the accusation to be rid of Prospera and claim her royal title. Taymor said, "She had her whole life taken away from her because she was a woman." Prospera wants to prevent the same thing from happening to her daughter
       • Full Text: In Shakespeare's play, Prospero was the Duke of Milan. In the adaptation, Prospera is the wife of the Duke. She is "more overtly wronged" than Prospero; when the duke dies, Prospera's brother Antonio (played by Chris Cooper) accuses her of killing him with witchcraft. Antonio makes the accusation to be rid of Prospera and claim her royal title. Taymor said, "She had her whole life taken away from her because she was a woman." Prospera wants to prevent the same thing from happening to her daughter (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tempest_%282010_film%29)

2. Fred M. Wilcox (1956): Forbidden Planet (US)

   • Change in Plot's Motivation
     • An Earth expedition headed by John Grant was sent to the planet to retrieve Dr. Adams and his daughter Dorianne, who had been stranded there for twenty years.
       • From then on, its plot is roughly the same as that of the completed film, though Grant is able to rescue both Adams and his daughter and escape the invisible monster stalking them. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Planet#Production
       • Effects?
   • Best Known for:
     • Special effects (colorful, future-world sets; speculative technologies) - nominated for an Academy Award.
       • How does it affect the film?
     • Sound / Music (zithering, atonal music score) - nominated for an Academy Awar. The first groundbreaking use of an entirely electronic musical score by Louis and Bebe Barron.
       • the film works to establish an other-worldly sensibility and couch that sense in a cutting-edge, mid-century special effects extravaganza
       • the score's "bleeps, blurps, whirs, whines, throbs, hums, and screeches" using reverberation and delay, and reversing or changing the speeds of certain sounds
     • The film was entered into the Library of Congress' National Film Registry in 2013, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
       • a “vehicle for understanding our culture and society more broadly.”
       • Gender politics
     • Robby: the first film to feature a robot with personality. Calibanian counterpart.
       • can speak 188 languages, including dialects and sub-tongues. Robby steals every scene he's in
     • "Id Monster"
   • Psychology
     • Id Monster
       • According to a "Behind the Scenes" featurette on the film's DVD, a close look at the creature shows it to have a small goatee beard, suggesting its connection to Dr. Morbius, the only character with this physical feature..
         • Effects: Id Monster is a representation of Dr. Morbius inner fear
       • The bellowing, now visible Id monster, caught in the crewman's high-energy blaster beams during the attack, is a direct reference to and visual pun on MGM's familiar roaring mascot, Leo the Lion, seen at the very beginning of Forbidden Planet and the studio's other films of the era.
         • Effects: whatever the Id Monster represents also represents film in general? or just a satire for comic effect
     • relating to the ideas or methods of Sigmund Freud, especially his ideas about the way in which people's hidden thoughts and feelings influence their behaviour. There is also a reference to one section of Jung's theory on the collective unconscious.
   • technology: see pict

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