The Tempest *** (1979, dir Derek Jarman) – Classic Movie Review 1312

‘We are such stuff. As dreams are made on, and our little life. Is rounded with a sleep.’ – Prospero.

Director Derek Jarman’s imaginative and entertaining 1979 unconventional reimagining of William Shakespeare play for the screen might be made on a low budget but it gets great value out of his fascinating cast. It stars Heathcote Williams as Prospero, with Toyah Willcox and Jack Birkett from Jarman’s previous feature, Jubilee (1977), as well as his long-time collaborator Karl Johnson.

Williams as an authoritative Prospero, Johnson as Ariel, Willcox as an oddball, punk Miranda (Prospero’s normally supposedly pure daughter), Lindsay Kemp’s colleague Jack Birkett as a Nosferatu-style savage, deformed slave Caliban, Johnson as the airy spirit Ariel and Christopher Biggins as a foppish drunken mariner Stephano are among the performance successes of a surprising cast.

It’s a bit of a home movie, but still infectious fun as Jarman lets his imagination run riot for his inventive, enjoyable, camp version of the Shakespeare favourite.

However, the movie’s most striking and entertaining sequence doesn’t have too much basis in Shakespeare – Elizabeth Welch’s outrageously kitsch and fun rendition of Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler’s vintage song ‘Stormy Weather’, playing A Goddess surrounded by dancing male sailors. It’s her last feature but she lived till she was 99 in 2003.

Richard Warwick (Antonio, Prospero’s brother), Peter Bull (as Alonso, the King of Naples), David Meyer (Ferdinand, his son), Neil Cunningham (Sebastian, his brother), Peter Turner (Trinculo, Stephano’s friend), Ken Campbell (as Gonzalo, an honest councillor), Claire Davenport and Kate Temple also star.

Shakespeare scholars praised it but traditionalists dismissed it of course. The film boasts much nudity, mostly male, but also some female including a scene in which Caliban’s mother Sycorax breast-feeds her son, offbeat casting and an unusual setting of a crumbling mansion as opposed to an island in Shakespeare’s play.

Johnson’s most notable role to date is the title role in Jarman’s 1993 film Wittgenstein. The executive producer is Don Boyd.

The role of Prospero was intended for an older actor and Jarman approached John Gielgud was but was turned down. It was then offered to Terry-Thomas but his failing health caused him to turn it down too. The character was then rewritten as a younger Prospero when Williams was cast. Gielgud finally played Prospero at the age of 87 in 1991 in Peter Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books.

It’s dedicated to the memory of Derek’s mother, Elizabeth Evelyn Jarman (née Puttock).

The greatly missed Derek Jarman was born on January 31 1942 in London, England as Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman. He was a director and writer, known for Caravaggio (1986), Edward II (1991) and Aria (1987). He died on February 19 1994 in London, aged 52, of complications from AIDS. He was one of the gay saints. His last words were ‘I want the world to be filled with white fluffy duckies’.

It was filmed again in 2010 featuring Helen Mirren in the principal role of Prospera and Ben Whishaw as Ariel. Directed by Julie Taymor, it premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2010.

(C) Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1312

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/

Derek Jarman’s garden, Prospect Cottage, Dungeness.