Movie Not As Shakespeare Liked It

FILM

As You Like It

by William Shakespeare

directed by Christine Edzard

starring Edward Fox, Andrew Tiernan

at the Museum of Fine Arts

March 31, April 2, 3, 9

Damn fine playwright, that Shakspeare. Problem is most people today just don't seem to enjoy him. Crying shame. But how to get it across to them? People today just want to stare blankly at a movie screen for entertainment... Hang on a second--I have an idea.

Some such logic must underpin the recent state of cinematic adaptations of Shakspeare's work; Kenneth Branagh, Franco Zeferelli, Derek Jarman (substitute Marlowe for the bard), and now Christine Edzard, director of "As You Like It," all strive to expose the movie-going public to the genius of Shakespeare. Everyone should have a chance to see his work; they, quite rightly, porvide it.

But Edzard, not content with physical accessibilit, seeks to render As You Like It more intell normally accessible too, by setting it in the modern day. Her contemporary analogy, while imaginatively filmed and well acted, does not fit Shakespeare's play--by using an analogy at all, no matter how apt, she mistakes the reason why Shakespeare doesn't normally attract mass audiences nowadays.

As You Like It tells the story of various disgruntled courtiers who flee to the mysterious Forest of Arden, some in voluntary, some in forced exile. The rustic life stands in sharp contrast to the luxury of the court; hardcore culture clash ensues. Against this background, Shakespeare relates three romances, at the level of nobility, attendants, and peasants, to indicate the essential kinship of all men. But Stratford's little boy doesn't paint a universally pleasant picture: some of Shakespeare's gloomiest assessments of humanity and its condition appear in As You Like It. This play gave us "All the world's a stage..." and "Blow, blow, thou winter wind,/ Thou art not so unkind/ As man's ingratitude." As it turns out, the court's corrupt and indolent; the countryside tiresome and uncouth.

Edzard substitutes corporate intrigue in the City of London for the back-stabbing court, and life on the streets, down-and-out, for the rural idyll of the play. This revision provokes not only the normal irksome inconsistencies of contextual changes, like holding a boxing match in the foyer of the Bank of England, or finding shepherds and their flocks roaming the squats of central London, but also more serious thematic contradictions. In the play, the Forest of Arden represents our collective escapist fantasy--the dream of a life free from complication or care. Homelessness does not play the same role in our society. Most people don't think of the homeless as philosopher kings who rule the universe in their minds: they're just poor bastards without a place to sleep. We are not at all surprised when disillusionment sets in. When the exiled courtiers come to their senses and realize that life in a cardboard box sucks, they look more stupid than worldly-wise.

But Edzard does convey the tone of the play masterfully. Despite the hearty doese of romance, "As You Like It" revels in a misanthropic melancholy. The faceless, charmless interior sets of lobbies and corridors convey a barren, hollow grandeur, whole the bleak urban wasteland of rubble-strewn lots and disused machinery has an equally oppressive effect. London's grey skies and wan, pallid bussinesspeople, seckled with liverspots, contribute to the gloom.

So too does Edward Fox's portrayal of Jacques: he wanders the set with a listless, patrician air, jowls drooping, mewling and puking depressing reflections from that hangdog aristocratic face of his. But Edzard relies most heavily on the central romantic couple, Orlando (Andrew Tiernan) and Rosalind (Emma Croft) to set the tone. Rosalind, disguised as a boy, meets Orlando pining for her love. Befriending him under her false indentity, she forces Orlando to court her as if she were Rosalind. The pair play this twisted charade as an agonizing process, reducing both of them to emotional ground beef. Here they are both in their element: red-eyed, sullen, resentful and argumentative in the throes of life's most beautiful emotion, love.

These themes come across with such clarity not because of the modern-day context, but because of the emoitve power of Shakespeare's writing. His plot is quite simple, and a little forced--but his themes are universal and enduring. Both the difficulty and the reward of Shakespeare lie in the language; giving the narrative or the context a facelift won't change this. Edzard ultimately fails to make Shakespeare any more accessible because she concentrates on making the easy part easier (with limited success), rather than working on the real challenge of bringing his language to life for a modern audience. Shakespeare is hard to sell and worth selling precisely because there is no easy way out.