Twelfth Night (or What You Will/Thames)
Picture: C
Sound: C+ Extras: C Telefilm: B
Before his theatrical film run of Shakespeare like nothing
since the work of Sir Laurence Olivier, starting with Henry V in 1989,
Kenneth Branagh directed a stage version of Twelfth Night for Thames TV
in 1988 with producer/director Paul Kafno doing the actual videotaped portions
based on Branagh’s specific approach.
The story is a comedy about love, identity and switching gender roles
just to get closer to someone. Ever
subversive, this 165-minutes version is pretty good, with another cast of
strong unknowns who are very-knowns on the British stage.
Yes, there are the moments where the characters talk to
the audience, which those finding frustration getting into the piece in the
first place to be even more annoying or condescending, but The Bard uses this
device to make the absurd more so and does not allow it to be personal thoughts
that is too self-contained. If and when
you do get it, the absurd is actually heightened. I am very hard on productions of Shakespeare and put the full
burden of the success on the actors and director to bring a given work to
life. When they do not, they profoundly
fail the material. Once again in this
series, they succeed and it is no wonder Branagh quickly launched to do such
work in feature films and caused a whole new cycle of Shakespeare in the
Cinema.
The 1.33 X 1 image was produced on professional analog PAL
video of the time and is a little softer than expected outside of any
stylizing. Color can be odd at times,
but it is not too distracting once you get adjusted. The Dolby Digital 2.0 takes the original monophonic sound (which
it still sounds like) and boosts it to simple stereo. The result is a passable presentation. The only extras are a repeat of the Shakespeare Timeline form the
other DVDs in the series and a Branagh interview that run about 11 minutes
dubbed Inside An Illyrian Winter.
- Nicholas Sheffo
