12th Night

The film adaptation we viewed in class was an excellent supplement to the reading. By creating a visual representation, the reader is able to put faces to names if they so chose by viewing a unique interpretation of the film. The way the characters were portrayed in the film was my favorite part. By adding such well known and talented actors as Ben Kingsley and Helena Bonham Carter, the roles are portrayed to their full potential and more viewers are drawn in due to the popularity of the actors and actresses. My favorite performance was by Mel Smith who played the drunken buffoon Sir Toby Belch. The character performed onscreen was indeed portrayed one hundred times better than I could have ever imagined him while I was reading the text. The bumbling, belching, drunken Belch was the comic relief of the movie and always entertaining while onscreen. Whether he was playing pranks on Malvolio or dancing with the lady’s maid, Belch was a delight to have onscreen. The portrayal of Cessario was rather well performed as well. She was obviously a woman to the viewer which made some of the scenes more comical. The play text was understandably slightly altered in the movie version of the play as this was a screenplay adapted from Shakespeare’s text. Certain scenes are slightly rewritten or cut in order to make them more adaptable for film format and this is very understandable. The revisions did not detract from the original text at all.
The setting created in the film closely mirrored my mental image of Illyria and the filmmakers did an excellent job of creating a believable and realistic setting of the fantasy world of Illyria. The landscape was a fantasy world itself with the high cliffs and rolling green plains. By seeing visual representations of the characters, they were embodied by physical actors and given a face and a purpose. The viewer could sympathize with a face and to see how it is acted out is also interesting. It makes you wonder how actors in Shakespeare’s time acted it out as opposed to how modern day actors chose to act in out in the film we watched. I believe the film makes the gender play more comical. The female who dressed up as Cessario was constantly made fun of and mocked by characters who called her a womanly man, and this was rather humorous. She didn’t appear to have any male features besides that little pencil thin moustache and a somewhat boyish haircut.
Overall, the film is a fantastic representation of the play and a great supplement to the reading that can absolutely benefit any reader and add a great deal to their knowledge and understanding of the play.