The Tempest

Plot synopsis:
The magician, Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, and his daughter, Miranda, have been stranded for twelve years on an island after Prospero's jealous brother Antonio (aided by Alonso, the King of Naples) deposed him and set him adrift with the 3-year-old Miranda. Gonzalo, Alonso's counsellor, had secretly supplied their boat with some food, fresh water, "rich garments, linens, stuffs and necessaries", and "volumes" (books) that Prospero prizes. Possessing magic powers due to his great learning, Prospero is served by a spirit, Ariel, whom Prospero had rescued from a tree in which he had been trapped by the cruel witch, Sycorax, after he had refused to obey her. Prospero maintains Ariel's loyalty by repeatedly promising to release the "airy spirit" from servitude. Sycorax had been exiled from Algiers to the island for wreaking havoc with her magic, and had died before Prospero's arrival and without releasing Ariel. Sycorax's son, Caliban, a deformed monster and the only non-spiritual inhabitant before the arrival of Prospero, was initially adopted and raised by him. He taught Prospero how to survive on the island, while Prospero and Miranda taught Caliban religion and their own language. In slavery, Caliban has come to view Prospero as a usurper and has grown to resent him and his daughter. Prospero and Miranda in turn view Caliban with disappointment, contempt and disgust. Prospero only performs one act of magic himself directly on stage: he disarms Ferdinand, causing his nerves to become "in their infancy again". The rest of his magic is through controlling spirits (or mentioned as happening previously), which is how magicians of the time were believed to operate.
Prospero, having divined that his brother Antonio is on a nearby ship, has raised a tempest that causes the passengers to believe they are shipwrecked and marooned. Also on the ship are Antonio's friend and fellow conspirator, King Alonso of Naples, Alonso's brother and son (Sebastian and Ferdinand, respectively) and Alonso's "trusted counsellor", Gonzalo. All these passengers are returning from the wedding of Alonso's daughter Claribel and the King of Tunis. Prospero contrives to separate the shipwreck survivors into several groups by his spells, and so Alonso and Ferdinand are separated, each believing the other to be dead.
Three plots then alternate through the play. In one, Caliban falls in with Stephano and Trinculo, two drunkards, believing Stephano to be a "brave god" who "bears celestial liquor". They attempt to raise a coup against Prospero, which ultimately fails. In another, Prospero works to encourage a romantic relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda; the two fall immediately in love, but Prospero worries that "too light winning [may] make the prize light", and compels Ferdinand to become his servant, pretending that he regards him as a spy. In the third subplot, Antonio and Sebastian conspire to kill Alonso and Gonzalo so that Sebastian can become King. Ariel thwarts them, at Prospero's command. Ariel appears to the "three men of sin" (Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian) as a harpy, reprimanding them for their betrayal of Prospero. Prospero, who has witnessed this, leaves to visit Ferdinand and Miranda. The three guilty nobles run off, distracted and in a frenzy, and Gonzalo and the attendant lords chase after to prevent them from doing "what this ecstasy may now provoke them to".
Prospero then explains that he tested Ferdinand, and betroths a willing Miranda to him. He then asks Ariel to bring some other spirits and create a masque to entertain the young couple. These spirits present a blessing by Iris, Ceres, and Juno, followed by dancing. Prospero suddenly remembers the plot against his life, dismisses the spirits and Miranda and Ferdinand, and sets a trap for Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano. They are chased offstage by goblins in the shape of hounds.
Prospero, all his enemies in his power, discovers that Ariel would pity them if he were "human", and decides to forgive the people who tried to kill him. He tells Ariel to fetch the nobles while he breaks his charms.
In the conclusion, all the main characters are brought together before Prospero, who forgives Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian. Ariel is charged to prepare the proper sailing weather to guide the King's ship back to the Royal fleet and then to Naples, where Ferdinand and Miranda will be married. After discharging this task, Ariel will finally be free. Prospero pardons Caliban, who is sent to prepare Prospero's cell, to which Alonso and his party are invited for a final night before their departure. (It is, however, not made clear whether, after their departure, Caliban will remain on the island or whether he will be taken to Naples.) Prospero indicates that he intends to entertain them with the story of his life on the island. Prospero has resolved to break and bury his magic staff, and "drown" his book of magic, and in his epilogue, shorn of his magic powers, he invites the audience to set him free from the island with their applause.

Tags: insanity, revenge, avant garde, psychedelic

Review:
It seems like one big homosexual fantasy, camp clothing, a glorified nude Ferdinand, a definite sexual tension between Ariel and Prospero, and as a final climax, a group of men in tight sailor suits dancing the hornpipe.
The sight of an innocent Ariel being pulled towards a disgusting nude Sycorax in order to perform "her earthy and abhorr'd commands", is one of the darkest I've ever scene in a Shakespeare film.
Still overall its an interesting interpretation of the play..
The Tempest has been interpreted in many different ways ranging from more or less traditional views as dealing with Art to more post-modern approaches that like to dissect the play along post-colonial, feminist, gender or deconstructionist lines.
Into this primordial mix, add some seventeenth century magic, and you have Shakespeare's "The Tempest", a play whose themes are: freedom, temperance, repentance, and forgiveness.
The main difference between Shakespeare's play and Derek Jarman's film is, of course, the nearly four hundred years of change in theatrics that separate the two artists.Jarman's version tries to adhere to the play, in that the film uses quasi-Elizabethan linguistics, which renders the dialogue difficult to understand.
The play's intent is still intact in the film, if a little obscured by the language, and is conveyed mostly through the acting and the cinematography, though "adapted" in style to a more contemporary audience.
Hence, the film's inventive finale features a vocal rendition of "Stormy Weather", a modern metaphor for a message that spans the ages.Even with the updated visuals, this film is going to be a bit much for most viewers.
While the rhythms of Elizabethan English are difficult for Americans, they seems to come naturally for British actors, and those here perform it well enough.The problems with this production arise, as they often do for THE TEMPEST, from the director's efforts to make it visually striking.
Because of the magic that lies at the heart of Shakespeare's autumnal work, its gorgeous language has fallen prey to people who think the best way to stage it is to think what Quentin Crisp would sneer at as too camp and turn it up a couple of notches.
One Shakespeare in the Park staging required a dozen people to play Ariel, including a Sumo wrestler; and Peter Greenaway's gloss on the play, PROSPERO'S BOOK, is so bad that when I saw it with some friends, I disrupted the occasion by guffawing at the over-the-top images.
They show up here, too.What all these geniuses fail to realize is that the play is a boy-meets-girl story, something Shakespeare wrote several dozen times.
The play's real magic is the story of Rapunzel and Snow White and all the other fairy tales which Bruno Bettelheim has shredded to show their symbolic content.
It's too bad that the people who produced this version either don't care about Shakespeare or think that no normal person will..
Derek Jarman's take on Shakespeare makes it into something of a punk symphony, without sacrificing the heart of the play.
His cast are mostly very good  especially Heathcote Williams as Prospero, Toyah as Miranda, and Karl Johnson as Ariel  and the bits that are added fit in well, especially Elisabeth Welch's appearance singing Stormy Weather'.
Comedy light relief is provided by Ken Campbell and Christopher Biggins as the shipwrecked drunks finding themselves on Prospero's enchanted island, with Jack Birkett as a creepy Caliban.The film keeps the interest by using the unexpected  it may miss the point of the quieter moments of the play but makes up for this by its sheer inventiveness.
A complete retelling of the play as a dream of vengeance: will baffle purists, but will delight the open-minded.
In The Tempest, Jarman does very little with the script or the characters, using them as simply a lattice to hang a very long and well-constructed cinematographic frame.
There is none of the romance, magic, trickery, or urgency the script calls for, little spontaneity, and the character of Caliban in particular is reduced to a quivering and insane idiot of sorts, similar to Gaveston in Jarman's Edward II.
It is too bad that this is just about the only film version of The Tempest available..
For me, the Tempest and its characters (by which I mean the admirable ones) are like old friends.
Ever since I first began to experience the play through acting classes (I played Ferdinand) I found myself immediately caught up in the fantastic world that Shakespeare created.
I can distinctly remember one student deciding not to play Ferdinand after all, and so I took the stage and had the honor of playing opposite an excellent Miranda.One of the virtues that a great friend has is that you can never fully know them - there is always something you can discover about their character.
A film production of the Tempest of quality is thus like a visit to an old friend, dear to one's heart: each visit presents one with new perspective on the memory we had of the work.
His magical power is so palpable in this production that it makes one wonder whether it was just politics that doomed Prospero to exile, but rather the fact of his difference from his peers.
All of the villains in this play, whether they realize it or not, act in accordance to creating a more pain-filled, hell of a world - it is always in the interest of the oppressor to make life on Earth closer to hell.
But Prospero manages to bring these terrestrial villains into his island, the realm where he has (absolute) dominion.Shakespeare brings his audience to the theater, the realm where Shakespeare dictates the events, the words, the outcomes.
Shakespeare is, of course, Prospero - but what this film adaptation does that really honors the text is to make Prospero so sympathetic such a figure of reason, despite the fact that he is surrounded by what society calls irrational (astrological texts, alchemical symbols, magical diagrams, etc.).
Prospero IS a heretic, for the reason he abandons his magic is not because the books will lose their value in Naples, but because they are not necessary anymore - the world itself - has become the magic of the books.In Hamlet, Hamlet presents a play to his peers.
This happens within the play, and then Shakespeare has this play performed for the men of his time.
In the tempest, Prospero lives the play he is constructing, and we live it with him.
The tragedy is that Shakespeare creates a paradise of reason and hope for mankind's life on Earth but man is weak, and unwilling to realize it in favor of petty power struggles.
We have Claudiuses.Like a good friend, this film is not without its flaws.
I have read all of Shakespeare's plays, seen productions of a majority of them and even acted in and directed some.
Some of the dialogue is incomprehensible, and there are those elements, like the singing and dancing that add no meaning to the movie, but replace Shakespeare with the director's self-indulgences.I am sorry to say that I wasted perfectly good money to buy the DVD of this movie..
I thought this was very "different" compared to most modern interpretations of Shakespeare and enjoyed it thoroughly.
as it does not show the traditional Shakespeare character interpretations (i.e- Miranda is portrayed quite punky compared to your traditional Shakespeare lady) but for understanding of the play and for the basis of the story it is a very strong piece and fantastic to watch.
It does not include also the correct format, as in the layout of acts and scenes as I am currently playing Miranda in a production and most of her lines had been cut and some scenes split and mixed around but it is very useful and I would definitely recommend it as a must-see even if just to say you've seen it!
I was studying "the tempest' at school recently, and this being the most faithful adaption my teacher could find, we watched it.Prospero looked more like an incarnation of Doctor Who, Miranda was some kind of seventies punk-brat (no change there, then, for toyah wilcox) and derek jarman clearly held the misguided notion that showing the fullfrontal scene of ferdinand clambering ashore in the buff would be enough to save this crap from descending into seat squirmingly, buttock clenchingly arduous cinema.however, unsurprisingly, scenes added more for the titillation of the director than for the enrichment of the production will not (shock horror) help this utter trite..
This IS a simple, unassuming film, but it prompted more rumination than say Branagh's `The Tempest' cleverly masquerading as `Dracula.'I have had only one experience with Jarman, with his `Wittgenstein,' which actually offended me with its lack of nuance.
Jarman is that kind of artist who has a single impulse, one thing to say and adapts any material to support it.
But no matter how technically sweet their expression, the fact remains that it is applied to a view of the world that bleaches rather than distills, simplifies rather than clarifies and dulls into stereotype instead of sharpening into archetype.Shakespeare works with ideas; those ideas have agency, engage in being themselves and weave their own tapestry in a spirit-like world, somewhat independent of human action.
It is bottomless, worthy of exploration for years.Now, along comes a stage tradition that believes the entire world of drama revolves around characters, the way they are written and played.
Greenaway's `Prospero's Books' - the best film Tempest by far - understood this.
At least in the play.Jarman gives us a different type of center: a buxom, sexy punk rocker who has the best understanding in the cast of vocal sculpting and presence.
And at the same time, Jarman so simplifies the play and characters (by omission, by making things `clear,' by using unsophisticated language, by giving each character a `role') that he turns the whole construction on is head.
Of all his plays, this one is the most difficult to stage because Shakespeare himself was struggling with the new technologies of the art.
Miranda's costume - the only one that matters - together with Ferdinand's nudity is pretty effective.So where I was expecting Shakespeare's engrossing insights on the superficialities of the world, I instead find myself captivated by that very world.
It may take some time to recover.See this and imagine the perfect film Tempest.
At the moment, I would include this dual, dangerous notion of passive/aggressive, sexuality in the girl as part of the ambiguity, something Shakespeare couldn't do (but would if he were here today).
It would have all the special effects machinery of the most popular current version of `The Tempest,' `The Matrix' (without the guns and glasses), and by this I mean not the effects of the movie but of the world within.
A confused but intriguing version of the Shakespeare play.
This film version of Shakespeare's play opens on an island where Prospero and his daughter Miranda have been exiled for many years along with their servant Caliban and a spirit called Ariel.
Ferdinand is separated from the others and captured by Prospero and accused of being a spy; Miranda vouches for him and gradually falls in love with him.
Meanwhile others survivors plot against their king and Caliban plans to kill Prospero, who he claims stole the island from him.This is the only version of 'The Tempest' that I've seen so I can't say how good an adaption it is; I can however say that it won't be for everybody.
The film sometimes feels more like a TV play than a film; although I don't imagine a TV play made in the '70s would feature as much nudity.
The cast do a solid job; I particularly liked Toyah Wilcox's portrayal of a punkish Miranda and Jack Birkett's disturbing performance as Caliban.
This was an interesting adaption of William Shakespeare's last known solo play but in my humble opinion, a terrible one.
He makes Miranda seem insane after being stuck on the island for so long, Prospero is no different - a mix of madness and self-pity on his part.
I could not imagine Shakespeare thinking his characters to be anything like the way Jarman portraits them.Caliban's appearance is maybe the only thing he got right, but then again, I was under the impression that Caliban was a tormented, deformed monster but turns out to be an insane rambling, northerner who is constantly cackling, not as I would have imagined him.
Ferdinand makes a brief appearance, naked most the time and quiet.In fact, to the point I stopped watching this awful adaption, their had been so many lines cut from the play.
If anything, I think Jarman was trying to re-write Shakespeare and include his own scenes most the time.
So much text is cut out in the first part it makes it not a Shakespeare play, but a load of 70's melodramatic, preposterous rubbish.An attempt to interpret this play more realistically in the end, but this play was never a realistic one and it was made nothing like the text displays it to be..
How gay this play can be in Derek Jarman's hands!.
No one can say they don't know Shakespeare's most mysterious play, The Tempest.
But no one can say they understand it because it is not done to be understood but only interpreted and that's exactly what Derek Jarman does with it.
We sure have an island and two people, father and daughter, Prospero and Miranda, marooned on it.
The object of the tempest is thus simple: to bring Ferdinand and Miranda together to get them married, Prospero's vengeance in a way on Alonso.But it is not a play about a vengeance and Derek Jarman puts a lot of other elements forward to amplify other levels of meaning.
Everyone is waiting for Ariel, the spirit that is used by Prospero to make the tempest happen and he is what we expect, a magical master of ceremonies.
He more or less loses all the others on the island for Prospero to have enough time for his plan.
And then he brings them to the castle in due time to be obliged to endorse the wedding.But that still is not the meaning Derek Jarman wants us to see.
But we know Derek Jarman does not believe in miracles.
He is making a film, and telling us a story and he wants us to know that the plot and the vengeance and even the marriage are nothing really interesting.
And Derek Jarman crowns this obvious gay scene with the black singer Elisabeth Welch singing "Stormy Weather" surrounded by all these sailors and their love multiple pas-de-deux.
And this time it is no longer a hint, it is a direct message of love from Derek Jarman to whoever, to any man he is missing right now:"Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky Stormy weather Since my man and I ain't together, Keeps rainin' all the time"And here Derek Jarman turned the Tempest around and it became a song or a prayer about impossible love, about separation, about longing for love that cannot come because of the "stormy weather" and Derek Jarman makes it a gay manifesto, and he probably was absolutely conscious of what he was doing.
He was hijacking Shakespeare's play from a simple straight meaning to a more complicated gay signification.
But he did that too with Shakespeare's sonnets in another film, The Angelic Conversation.
Derek Jarman leaves the play with a last vision of the same palace, the same hall where the wedding feast has just come to an end.
Prospero is till there too, unable to go because Ariel is his lover, he is in love with Ariel and he cannot go away from him, even in the stormy weather we know.
That's the very sad moment of this interpretation of the play: love is for everyone else when you are gay, because then gay love can only be found on a desert island on which you are marooned once and for all, and your gay love will be for a spirit, a phantom.
Your love will be nothing but an illusion for an illusionary character that only exists in your mind.That's the sad way of looking at this film.
I was loaned this DVD by the director of a film I am working with, in which I play an actor who is playing Prospero.
Like most experimental music, I find that in films such as this, the building blocks of powerful film-making are crafted, even if they have not found their most useful form in a more coherent format.Thus we have a Caliban who is more a clown than a threat, and who not even Miranda seems terribly afraid of (which is odd, since we know that he has attempted to rape her at least once).
An oddly young Prospero who looks like Amadeus.
Derek Jarman's retelling of Shakespeare's "The Tempest".
I never read the play or saw any version of it so I was a little confused about what was going on.
It's something about a man named Prospero who's exiled to an island with his daughter Miranda, a REAL annoying slave and an angel (I think) named Ariel.
His brother and the king did it to him (I'm not sure why) so Ariel fixes it that the king's son Ferdinand is shipwrecked on the island, becomes a slave of Prospero and falls in love with Miranda.This is NOT a faithful retelling of the play.
There's plenty of frontal male nudity--actor David Meyer (playing Ferdinand) is introduced completely nude for a lengthy time--and there are strange costumes, noises and settings all mixed with Shakespeare's dialogue!
Then there's a woman all dressed up and lip-syncing (badly) to "Stormy Weather"...I honestly can't say I liked it but the acting is good and it's definitely the strangest Shakespeare adaptation I've ever seen.
Jarman did another one like this years later--"Edward II"--which was better than this.