"Coriolanus" a review by Alan Farrell

Coriolanus. Directed by ("based," we are assured, on the "play" by William Shakespeare): Ralph Fiennes. Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave (Who left the phonebook out in the rain? ...her looks--desiccated, pinched, bitter now--mirror her insufferable, brittle self-righteousness, so there is entropy in the universe), Jessica Chastain (last seen that I recall as the pouty, un-virginal daughter in The Upside of Anger), doing acceptably (and poutably) here despite being one (pfui!) Gringa mouthing in Britishitude fee-male outrage that a man seek redress over a public affront and public injustice.

The fate of a brave soldier who cannot keep his mouth shut, cannot love the plebs. Tell that to McChrystal and Petraeus and McMaster and Yingling and Nagl and Shinseki and Zinni and Smedley Butler, who ree-tired early or into oblivion and to vague civic opprobrium on account of said what had to be said to whom: "I cannot stand naked and entreat them for my wounds' sake to give their suffrage." Shakespeare's generals pretty much take a beating for their integritas (allegedly the sound of a fist thumping a so-solid breastplate... in modern life the sound of blunt object poked up a so-tight umph umph till owner's eyeballs bug out, and most often by one's similar, more's the pity): Titus Andronicus (pronounced Andro-NIGH-cus in Britspeak); Coriolanus (pronounced Corio-LAY-nus in Brititiary); Othello (pronounced Ori-FICE in Britese). Slimy politicians, demagogues, sanctimonious fee-males, ruthless warlords... oooh, that Shakespeare was prescient in his vision of things future, nay eternal (or else we're dumb as a soda cracker on account of cannot evolve beyond 1623). I kinda incline toward both viewpoints simultemporaneously.Anyhow. What've we done with poor Shakespeare lately? We've got The King is Alive in the Kalahari (variously spelt) and Looking for Richard in New York (about as arid, do you ask me), then Ten Things I Hate About You/Taming of the Shrew in Seattle (arid and rainy at once) and Shakespeare in Love now Anonymous (which appear to have blown through the Cineplex without much dust, go figure: the popcorn crowd not ready for questions of authorship?), couple of Midsummernight's and Romeo's out there, too, along with one interesting variant: the set-in-1930's Richard III with Ian McKellam waving a broomhandle Mauser and intoning the "Now is the winter..." speech into the microphone at a dress ball. Well, otay. Have it your way. You can dress everybody up in pantyhose and those puffy shorts things or you can try to hang some of the Bard's barbs on modern fixtures. Howsomever you do it, we know we're gonna get a dose of cultcha and better like it or risk be identified as a boor (that's not bore, now, someone merely uninteresting; it's boor, someone violently and proudly and publicly dumb, brutish, recalcitrant). Ouch! And no gummi bears while the ac-toors are mouthing the lines, trippingly to the tongue, if we're lucky.

Soooooo... This Coriolanus appears to be set vaguely in Eastern Euro where a warlord, Aufidus (Gerald Butler doing his best to twang the second-fiddle with that what-is-it Scot's accent of his and sorta wasted in a colorless role or perhaps investing a role that color without it for reasons of wasn't-his-thing...though I consider his turn as Beowulf one of the best of any portrayal of anything in all cinee-mah), harboring dark resentment over atrocity worked on his family, his people and kinda perhaps maybe a Serbian (or Croatian... or Kosovoan like what's the difference? based on the uniforms and beards... whoa! ... lotta beards in this one) defies "Rome" and her staunch defender, Marcius (that's how Shakespeare spellt it, by the bye) soon to become Coriolanus after a bloody victory at Corioli. Marcius and Aufidus are sworn enemies and to the death, warrior adversaries who nonetheless share the warrior's bond of courage after its fashion and passion in battle, later to become dubious allies. Aufidus seeks revenge; Marcius, it would seem, harbors ambitions (as does his Mom, Volumnia: "Thou art my warrior; I holp to frame thee," "holp" the Old English past particuticle periphrastive of "help," let me say before the English Department from Yale weighs in). To become tribune (not to be confused with lictor or edile: quick lesson in Roman hierarchy: a tribune can make a lictor do push-ups can make an edile chug the squeeze-bottle of mustard), though, you do have to schmooze the populus romanus (the populum romanum to refigitate the accusative absolute according to its proper declension; remember Mark Twain said he'd rather decline two beers than one noun), stroke the plebedians, "mountebank their loves," "cog their hearts." This, alas, Marcius/Coriolanus is too "noble" to do and the plebs too dumb to do without.

Spurned by the mob (a mob massaged by evil partisans against his "marcial"snobbery), the newly-minted Coriolanus (variously pronounced) sidles over to Aufidus, agreeing to lead the latter's troops against Rome. Camped now outside the walls of that city, Coriolanus now gets treated to a harangue on duty and Volkssturmitude by the braying Volumnia, who wrenches tears from the scarred but inescapably Roman Roman and an armistice, the which will cost him ultimately his life (sorry to ruin it for you, but when did a Shakespeare play end happily? "But it sufficeth that it will end and then the end be known..."). Quite a clever rendition, seem to me, at least a watchable one: the necessary background neatly, urgently registered as news reports CNN style across a blurry teevee screen. Fiennes appropriately adamantine as a man who cannot love men (kills a bunch of them) and, to give her her due, Redgrave appropriately irksome as a fee-male who knows just what men ought to do with their lives.

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Nagl does not belong on this list.  Neither do some of the others.    pl

Comments

[Charles I]

Thank you for your pronunciation guide, it really adds to the . . . the. . .verisimilitude of theeater. Shall have to watch Beowulf.

[DeDwarf]

Feral One. It is good to read your movie reviews once again. Been out of circulation for 3 years (computerwise, not incarcerated). Keep writing and I'll keep reading as long as my eyesight holds out.

[mbrenner]

Conclusion?

1. See it and enjoy it as 'camp?'

2. Avoid at all costs/

3. See it and enjoy the Shakespeare lines?

Not sure what the recommendation is

Ends its run here on the prairie this week.

[FB Ali]

I enjoyed the review (probably more than I would the film)!

Dr Brenner, FWIW, that's what I understood from it.

[JM]

"Vanessa Redgrave...(Who left the phonebook out in the rain? ...her looks--desiccated, pinched, bitter now..."

Well, she's 75 after all.

Liberally paraphrasing Tina Fey, perhaps a woman is considered "desiccated and pinched" when no one wants to f&*k her anymore?

[Medicine Man]

I remember Much Ado About Nothing and Taming of the Shrew ending fairly happily.

[rjj]

MM - both plays end in marriage.

[greg0]

Just watched Julie Taymor's The Tempest this evening. Helen Mirren as Prospera was as good as Anthony Hopkins in Titus.
I'll be waiting for this Coriolanus version to be released onto Netflix.

[optimax]

Macbeth ended happily. His marital problems were solved and Malcom invited everyone still alive to Starbucks to buy them Scones.

[linda]

re vanessa redgrave. not to mention that she lost her sister and one of her daughters within the past couple of years.

[rjj]

WRT Volumnia.

Redgrave is good at irksome. She and Joanne Woodward have the gift of seeming to have been miscast no matter what role they play. Exception to this is Redgrave's suffragette in The Bostonians. Have been trying to imagine how she does Patrician Roman matron - can see her as Mrs. Bates, in Norman: the early years (a prequel), but not the old lioness needed for Marcius to make sense. Irksome alone won't do it.

[rjj]

for the heck of it, checked The Google. My imaginary prequel, made up years ago, turns out to have been done by someone. Curses! should have copyrighted the damn thing.

[Fred]

Ah, more betrayal from the bard. Well framed between two posts concerning our "best ally blah de da". Something subliminal? (surely appropriate, though) How about a review of the new John Carter movie? I am reasonably sure no crevasse seeking spandex in that one either, though plenty of tusks, Tharks and computerized combat.

[Medicine Man]

Not unhappy marriages as I recall.

[rjj]

... in the fullness of time, MM

Never mind the ineluctable onset of sameold-sameold.

Petruccio is from Verona. What if he and Kate beget a son named Tybalt. Beatrice & Benedick could be shipwrecked off Illyria on their off-season discounted wedding trip.

Anything can happen in Ludoland.

[optimax]

I just finished watching "Andrei Rublev" by Tarkovsky and find it hard to consider the sludge coming out of Hollywood art. John Carter, no,no,no, I'd rather see Kathy Bates naked again. Speaking of the Bates family, one of the worst movies I ever walked out of was Gus Van Sant's frame-by-frame reproduction of Psycho. It was a boring art school project.

[Medicine Man]

Gah, such a cynic.

Nevertheless, things were ducky when the curtain dropped. I suppose if you want to extend the timescale far enough into the future everyone dies in a Shakespeare play. Viola, unhappy ending.

[Gatun Lake]

Terrific play. Depending on interpretation can be seen through the eyes of Martius or plebians or senators, conveying very different statements about our world. Hence the ban in post WWII Germany of this play along with others that might have been used to spur civil unrest.(Glorification of Dictatorship)etc. Plays like gangbusters in the theatre. Disturbing stuff, politics, war, hunger, and a hero with mommy issues.
Fred,
John Carter's shaping up to be Hollywood's biggest bomb in a long time. Hope that's not indicative of things concerning "our best ally blah de da".

[Stephanie]

Well--offhand I'd say Redgrave was a lovely and affecting Andromache in "The Trojan Women" and perfectly cast as Hellman's fictional Julia, to name two other roles. She would have been a great Isadora if she could dance and I also liked her as Joe Orton's slinky agent in "Prick Up Your Ears." I quite agree about Volumnia but I also think lioness is within Redgrave's range, maybe she just didn't manage it this time. I'm sure she could say things like “Anger’s my meat; I sup upon myself / And so shall starve with feeding” and give them some punch. Unless those lines didn't make the cut in this version.

[Fred]

Kathy Bates.... wow, that bad? Looks like I saved $9 and a couple of hours.

[greg0]

We enjoyed the modern dress version of Coriolanus last season in Ashland, Oregon. Thoroughly professional, OSF does a great job with everything - even Animal Crackers this year!
Here is a blurb from them http://www.osfashland.org/browse/production.aspx?prod=93
"The play deals with politics and social structure, mob mentality and personal pride, the differences between the qualities that make a person a successful soldier and those that make him a successful politician. The play’s look at leadership and political machinations will be especially relevant and accessible during a presidential election year."

[Stephanie]

I managed to catch "Anonymous" during the fleeting few days it played my multiplex. Structurally and historically it's a mess and I didn't like Redgrave's dithering not-so-Virgin Queen but it wasn't nearly as bad as most of the reviewers made out.

[rjj]

Decided in order to feel free to make fun of finicky foodies and conspicuously discriminating oenies, must abstain from acting quibbles, so ... no comment.

except to say only dimly remember Trojan Women which seemed the least successful of the Cacoyannis-does-Euripides series. Have been meaning to see it again since it came out on DVD. Would be hard to miss with Andromache, tho, wouldn't it? She is affecting no matter who plays/played her - except.. maybe..(hypothetically) Jane Fonda.

oh no, oh no. must. stop.