Stunning adaption that makes you cry with laughter - Rated 
I first saw this film when I was eight years old and have known it off by heart ever since. Having also watched and studied performances of 'Much Ado About Nothing' on stage I am able to say that the conversion from stage to screen is done beautifully by Kenneth Branagh.
In response to anyone who has not seen any Shakespeare comedies I state that this film is absolutely hilarious and easy to understand, despite the fact that the original play was first performed in 1598!
I thoroughly recommend that you watch this film over and over again along with Shakespeare's other productions!
A pretty good attempt at one of Shakespeare's B-list plays - Rated 
Nobody could say the storyline in Much Ado About Nothing is particularly clever. In fact, despite some very witty lyricism you would have to say this is one of Shakespeare's weakest plays. Having said that, this interpretation by Kenneth Branagh makes the most of the material. The comic characters are completely over-the-top (including Michael Keaton of Batman fame, and Ben Elton, creator of the Young Ones) and the more serious ones are given a slightly modern interpretation. The main plot which deals with the importance of virginity in a new bride, has a gently mocking modern treatment. The whole play is, as its name suggests, a storm in a teacup and Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thomson make the most of the sarcastic interplay available to them. Even the charming Denzel Washington manages not to stumble over his lines.
Ruined, alas - Rated 
Despite fine performances from an all-star cast, this film is spoiled by mawkish camerawork and a startlingly inappropriate score from the ever-disappointing Patrick Doyle. Almost unwatchable.
Too pleasant - Rated 
After the success of Branagh's stage version of this play, I was very disappointed with this film and suspect he was pressurised by those putting up the money to make it seems a wonderfully romantic experience from start to finish. Personally I felt that, for the first five minutes, I was bathing in warm honey and then that the enamel was being slowly scraped off all my teeth. Shakespeare's comedies always have a darker side and, unless that is addressed, the play becomes bland. It didn't help that so much of the filming took place in unremittingly gorgeous sunshine. As Peter Quince observes about production in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', "There are two hard things in this play." Here the first hard thing is to to make Claudio, who has behaved apallingly to Hero, appear likeable when the stain is finally removed from her character; it is not enough to cast a handsome bloke, we must really believe that Claudio's repentance is deep and sincere; that what he has learned about himself means that he will never behave in so shallow and insensitive a way again. The second problem is to make Dogberry and the other members of the Watch appear funny. Branagh seemed to have no idea how to do this and the result was this group cavorted about as if they were young teenagers in the end of term romp. Embarrassing.
Shakespeare was, is and will remain the best ever - Rated
Shakespeare and his entangled love affairs are as famous as Dracula and his blood cult. But we recognize here the friar who advises a fake death to the girl and we remember that Romeo and Juliet came first in 1596. Shakespeare started with the tragedy around the clandestine marriage of the two heroes, and then moved on to a comedy that sounds at time very tragic, Much Ado About Nothing in 1598, and he doubles the merriment by having two weddings. And he will go on with As You Like It in 1600 and its four marriages under the auspices of the thrice crowned goddess Diana. And this was a model of perfection that he had kept from A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1594. But this present comedy could have been a drama at least if not a tragedy since the death being false, based on a false accusation what's more, could have led to a duel and one real death before being discovered as a fake, and it leads to the arrest of the villain who had arranged the fakery so that a happy love wedding was turned into a dramatic denunciation of the impurity of the bride. That's probably why he doubled the first line of action with a second that reminds us of The Taming of the Shrew (1593) and that second line will lead to the second marriage that will bring everyone, except the plotter, to merriment, gaiety and dancing. But this production is admirable because the setting of the play in a real garden and rich mansion in more or less renaissance clothing though it could be slightly more recent gives to the actors all the space they need to dance, play, hide, run, and many other things. The acting is admirable and they really make the language sing the way it should, sing joy as well as pain, sing sadness as well as happiness. Of course the language is also a little bit difficult but we get used to it very fast and we follow the music of it as well as the words, and the actors were directed into speaking as if they were singing, to the point of even having a failed attempt at real singing that sounds like a cat being disemboweled. And the final but suspended lack of clemency against the guilty plotter is there to remind us that everything may end with songs and dances, but there is always some drama to bring to an end sooner or later, and in that case outside the time limits of the play. But yet I always wonder about what such comedies, or tragedies like Romeo and Juliet, could look like in Shakespearean times when women were not allowed on the stage. So many girls played by teenagers must have been funny, with an echo in the play when Beatrice speaks of men with a beard or men without a beard and the latter are less of a man than she would ever like. That was said by a man without a beard in 1598. I guess we would find it funny and even maybe ridiculous today. But it should be attempted. Shakespeare played on the situation quite often with varying motivations.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
|
