William Shakespeare - The Winter's Tale [1998]

Momentary glimpses of his old glory. As much as expected really. Good price tho, and swiftly dispatched in appropriate packaging.

This is a movie of a wonderful stage production, filmed live in the theatre. As such, it lacks the advantages of each medium. The intimacy of a live show is missing, whilst the tricks of the camera and the embellishments to a simple stage set that can be easily achieved on film are similarly absent. The sound of the actors' footsteps on the wooden stage are a constant reminder of this device, but it comes over as a tiresome distraction. This is a pity, since the production is good, and the actors bring the text to life in a way that needs little external context. In particular, Anthony's Sher's performance as Leontes is a stunningly brilliant portrayal of the split personality, whose joy, fury, torment and contrition are all powerfully real. Alexandra Gilbreath's Hermione is more one-dimensional, and her diction is a little off putting, but the character itself is little more than a dramatic foil for Leontes and Paulina to play out their moral conflict. Estelle Kohler portrays Paulina as a haughty English governess. At first I found her to come over as too stridently self-righteous, but gradually she became convincing. The pastoral scenes and the carefree romance between Perdita (Emily Bruni) and Florizel (Ryan McCluskey) add warmth to this chilly morality play. The Winter's Tale contains two dramatic scenes that are famously verging on the impossible to stage without risking giggles from the audience at just the wrong moment (Antigonus' exit, pursued by a bear, and the coming to life of the statue of Hermione). This production avoids the guffaws, though the cinematic possibilities of both scenes remain unexplored. On balance, it's worth seeing this on film, but it is a rather poor substitute for the real thing.

There are no subtitles and I cannot hear without them as I have a hearing deficit. It was not possible to establish whether or not it had them beforehand.

Fantastic production.

This is what Shakespeare should be like. Time stands still with performances like these.

Not much to recommend. Too many anticipated intonations and stresses in the language that one might expect. (Please excuse the omission of my acute accent on cliche - can't be bothered to find it). A complete distraction really from the experience that it should be). A museum piece, needing a new stuffing.Foot stamping is also too distractive.