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Not exactly an "old" film; in fact, New York's Lincoln Center Film Society has extended it's run of the film to this Thursday (Feb. 9), thank goodness. I've yet to see it but am curious about what anyone here who has seen it thinks of Fiennes' outing. I'm also brushing up a bit on the play (many critics over the centuries calling it Shakespeare's finest). Anyone here have any lingering impressions?

I'll give a review, of course, after I've seen it but here's an interesting (nearly 2 hour) critical intro to the play/film by Harvard's Prof. Marjorie Garber on Coriolanus and its influence on the culture.

Also, here's a well observed review of the film that I'm unlikely to top.

Here's a piece from the Radio Times in which Jon Snow, the Channel 4 news presenter in the UK, talks of his experience of performing in the film. (I've not seen it yet but apparently the setting is a kind of contemporary Balkans War one).

This just came to the theater around here, and I've been anticipating it for a while- I wasn't let down. I'm not familiar with the text, though I'm curious about it now, but the realization of it did an excellent job of feeling both like a film in its own right and in making Shakespeare's words sound natural coming from the characters we were looking at- though it was obviously helped in that by the unbelievably talented cast (of whom it seemed like Jessica Chastain got short shrift, though I'm guessing it's a situation where her character just didn't have that many lines, so everything had to be got in by meaningful looks off to the side of whomever was speaking.)

The balance of the movie seemed to tip away from the modern dress political stuff and towards a more direct Shakespeare adaption once Coriolanus is exiled- I think Fiennes couldn't really find a way to make that situation less about personalities in a way that would fit the Balkan war feeling of the first half- but it remains engaging throughout. Though I feel a strong urge to read a lot of stuff about the play itself now, as I walked out really having no idea of what I had just watched was saying to me.

I saw it here in Melbourne Australia. It was projected so loud that the opening 20 (?) minute battle scene was like being in a 20 minute battle. Very off-putting, and probably one reason why screenings were reduced and the film relegated to a 20 seat cinema, as elderly patrons fled and warned off their girlfriends, quite rightly. Fiennes' performance was for me just too one-note: watching his extremely contorted features brow-to-chin floor-to-ceiling for two hours just lacked variety, light and shade, what-you-will. Vanessa as Volumnia was good (how can anyone fail in this wonderful part?), but not as effective as I thought she'd be. On the upside, almost everything about the rest was intensely interesting and fully imagined. The modern Kosovo setting was illuminating and vividly populated. Brian Cox tremendous. But nothing much can make up for the psychopathic portrayal of Coriolanus, which just becomes tiring.

For contrast, I recommend anyone interested in this play to watch the BBC Shakespeare version of 1984 directed by Elijah Moshinsky. It stars Alan Howard who can play the disdainful Coriolanus with the variety necessary to avoid totally alienating the viewer, and as Volumnia, the transcendent Irene Worth. As a bonus, the text is only lightly trimmed, unlike the movie's radical cuts. (As well, when Coriolanus and his deadly enemy Aufidius finally meet, the homoerotic overtones in the arm-to-arm clash of the dirty sweaty scantily-clad Romans are fully exploited. Fiennes didn't seem interested in this stuff at all, even though Shakespeare gives Aufidius a mancrush aria to Coriolanus).

I'll be interested to watch the Fiennes on dvd, but I'll be skipping a lot to the crowd scenes...

The UK Lionsgate DVD has the same extras as the US Blu-ray/DVD, but the UK Blu-ray adds about 100 minutes of cast/crew interviews. I recommend the UK BD if you are capable of playing region B discs.

manicsounds wrote:The UK Lionsgate DVD has the same extras as the US Blu-ray/DVD, but the UK Blu-ray adds about 100 minutes of cast/crew interviews. I recommend the UK BD if you are capable of playing region B discs.

Actually, the making of on the US BD is only five and a half minutes long, not the twenty-five and a half minute piece on the UK editions.

For the record: The cast and crew interviews are actually just under an hour long altogether, and added to the UK making of, equals just over 85 minutes of extra material on the UK BD (commentary excluded as it's on both countries' versions).