It may be that since I have become older my hearing has deteriorated, or that my TV set needs replacing, or that the cable signal here is below par; but, for many dramatic works on TV, I now consistently find difficulty in following the dialogue. When this happens I usually attribute it to poor diction by the cast members. This would be very difficult to do in the case of Twelfth Night which has a uniformly excellent cast. Nevertheless my experience is that this problem is always exacerbated during the performance of any classic work which has been significantly transposed in either space of time, and I therefore do not generally enthuse about productions featuring Shakespearean plays as contemporary works. This film of Twelfth Night is actually set in the nineteenth century, and is also geographically transposed from Illyria to what is clearly Cornwall. Unfortunately I personally found this to be even more confusing than a completely contemporary performance. With Shakespeare in modern dress, one must accept the cast travelling by automobile or aeroplane and using modern electronic equipment, but here we have a period piece where the sixteenth century dialogue is spoken by actors in nineteenth century attire and interspersed by the playing of modern musical instruments and games, the use of period firearms, the riding of bicycles, and travel by stagecoach. For me such changes created great incongruities which destroyed the illusion of reality that all dramatic works have to try to create, and thus made the plot even more difficult to follow. So I am sorry but I cannot share the enthusiasm of many other viewers whose comments are recorded here.
That said, I must acknowledge that the performances are outstanding and the play flows in a way which many more traditional versions do not. Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's finest plays, with many complex characters who can constantly surprise the audience without in any way derailing the ongoing comedy, and this makes the play a joy to watch. Unfortunately only too often this comedy is reduced to near slapstick, which completely hides the depth Shakespeare wrote into most of the characters he created. Nunn's presentation is one of the best I have seen for gradually revealing these unexpected facets of character as his (greatly shortened) play develops. The longer I watched it the more at home I felt, and the nearer I came to at last being drawn into the performance. I can readily understand that those who do not share the reservations I have expressed above would be likely to rate this film very highly. In particular the performances of Ben Kingsley as Feste and of Helen Bonham Carter as Olivia are of award winning quality. The photography is also delightful, and the film shows none of the blips in continuity that so often take place when a heavily cut play by Shakespeare is filmed. Overall I have rated this film at 5 stars; but readers of these comments should recognise that I would have liked to give it a higher rating if only I had been able to forget occasionally that I was watching actors playing rather strange and hybrid parts.
That said, I must acknowledge that the performances are outstanding and the play flows in a way which many more traditional versions do not. Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's finest plays, with many complex characters who can constantly surprise the audience without in any way derailing the ongoing comedy, and this makes the play a joy to watch. Unfortunately only too often this comedy is reduced to near slapstick, which completely hides the depth Shakespeare wrote into most of the characters he created. Nunn's presentation is one of the best I have seen for gradually revealing these unexpected facets of character as his (greatly shortened) play develops. The longer I watched it the more at home I felt, and the nearer I came to at last being drawn into the performance. I can readily understand that those who do not share the reservations I have expressed above would be likely to rate this film very highly. In particular the performances of Ben Kingsley as Feste and of Helen Bonham Carter as Olivia are of award winning quality. The photography is also delightful, and the film shows none of the blips in continuity that so often take place when a heavily cut play by Shakespeare is filmed. Overall I have rated this film at 5 stars; but readers of these comments should recognise that I would have liked to give it a higher rating if only I had been able to forget occasionally that I was watching actors playing rather strange and hybrid parts.