When Jan and I were in Venice this summer (2010), we were surprised to learn that a new feature film version of The Tempest is slated to close the Venice Film Festival in September. Later, I was delighted to discover that the film stars Helen Mirren (as "Prospera") and is directed by Julie Taymor. I can't wait to see it! Disney is releasing it in American theaters in December.
You probably know Julie Taymor as the director of Frida, Across the Universe, and the Broadway version of The Lion King. (Her credits in the opera world are equally impressive.) Isn't it thrilling that an artist of Ms Taymor's stature is tackling this text? I feel taller just having a similar ambition!
No doubt Julie will bring praiseworthy wit and imagination to the play that Shakespeare's literary executors considered "first among equals." (It opens the First Folio.) Shooting the film in Hawaii brings this latest production both closer to and farther away from the America that Shakespeare never saw but invested in with both his imagination and his savings. Would that he were alive today to behold the lives his characters continue to lead--and the productions his plots have spawned!
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