Love’s Labor’s Lost and Found?

My post on Love’s Labor’s Lost ended with me basically writing off the play and vowing to move on. This I did not do. Something about it bothered me, perhaps the nagging suspicion that something had been left undiscovered, so I looked further and found a modern film version of the play produced by Kenneth Branagh…yes, the Kenneth Branagh. To say I was surprised is mild. The fact that there is a modern, big budget version of this play by Branagh, one of the great interpreters of Shakespeare in our time (at least on the Hollywood stage), is nothing short of a miracle. My first thought was: this guy must be the bravest dude ever. This play, generally agreed upon as Shakespeare’s most obscure, would scare off pretty much anyone even thinking about producing it (indeed, it is rarely ever staged nowadays). So, what’s the deal?

I guess Branagh really likes the play, the idea of which absolutely intrigues me (someone liking it enough to spend millions of dollars and countless hours producing it). He liked it enough to make it into a movie…wow. And it’s actually an easy movie to appreciate, given the “unfriendliness” of the source material, especially if you are like me in wanting, really wanting, to like everything The Bard has done. I liked the movie because it helped me understand and appreciate the play, something I could not claim before seeing it.

In watching the movie, one sees much of merit, much more so than in the reading. So much is so easily missed on the page (I know, not surprising, right?...seeing as these things are plays, not books…but in my defense I did acknowledge this as a shortcoming in an earlier post). In the presentation of it, so much is added so as to make the comprehension of it almost impossible without it being shown to you, which brings up an interesting quandary for those bent on appreciating this play, namely, if the play is so obscure that, in order to understand it, you need to see it, how can you see it when no one (save this crazy Branagh guy) will produce it because it is so obscure. Problems, problems, problems…

It was great watching Branagh pull it off, this play, watching how he goes about turning this behemoth language puzzle into a Hollywood movie. In thinking about this, there are three things he did particularly well:

1. He discards large portions of the text (maybe as much as half?), focusing on the more accessible parts so as to better connect with the audience. In a play with almost no plot, this is well advised.
2. He makes it a musical, inserting at least a dozen popular show tunes at key areas to significantly up the entertainment value. A little song and dance never hurt anyone.
3. It is well cast, with some really great actors (Nathan Lane and Adrian Lester, most notably).

Concerning the first point, the portions of the text he does use are at times great, and I can show you. Take this piece, delivered during probably the best passage in the play, Berowne’s discourse on Love:

And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.

Or this one, delivered in a great, haunting tone by the character Boyet, as the camera swings around him:

The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen
As is the razor's edge invisible,
Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,
Above the sense of sense; so sensible
Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings
Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.

I love that. He highlights these (and other) passages in his movie using all the tricks of the trade and it works, the movie making the play, as blasphemous as that may sound.

So he pulls it off, in my most humble of opinions. It’s a good (key?) companion to reading the play. It’s worth noting that most critics pretty much hated the movie (most, but not all. See this review, which is really good and reflects my views pretty closely), so I stand somewhat alone. Most notably, however, and a good ending to this rambling post, is that almost no one saw it…and money does talk, at least on some level. Apparently it earned around $24,000 (yes, that’s thousand, not million) on it’s opening weekend…which is pretty much more than an embarrassment in Hollywoodland. And I can guess why of course (something about the source material maybe?), but again, I appreciate the effort and I appreciate the interpretation, which helped me so much to connect with it…which is a big part of what this whole thing is about.