William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night’s Dream

By EMANUEL LEVY, May 10, 1999

A Fox Searchlight release of a Fox Searchlight Pictures and Regency Enterprises production.

Produced by Leslie Urdang, Michael Hoffman.

Executive producer, Arnon Milchan.

Co-producer, Ann Wingate.

Directed, written by Michael Hoffman, based on the play by William Shakespeare.

Nick Bottom - Kevin Kline

Titania - Michelle Pfeiffer

Oberon - Rupert Everett

Puck - Stanley Tucci

Helena - Calista Flockhart

Hermia - Anna Friel

Demetrius - Christian Bale

Lysander - Dominic West

Theseus - David Strathairn

Hippolyta - Sophie Marceau

Peter Quince - Roger Rees

Egeus - Bernard Hill

Tom Snout - Bill Irwin

Francis Flute - Sam Rockwell 

The Bard continues to ride high in American film with "William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream," Michael Hoffman’s whimsical, intermittently enjoyable but decidedly unmagical version of the playwright’s wild romantic comedy.

Set in Tuscany at the turn of the century, this modernist comedy features an impressive cast that elevates the film above its flaws. Pic brims with ideas and promises but suffers from a lack of coherent vision and diverse acting styles from the Brit, American and French thesps. Fox Searchlight’s aggressive marketing campaign, as well as residual benefits from the "Shakespeare in Love" bonanza, should help overcome a lukewarm criticalreception in generating moderate business, but B.O. will fall below expectations for what is trumpeted as Searchlight’s biggest production to date.

"A Midsummer Night’s Dream" has inspired numerous stage productions, a filmed version of Peter Hall’s production at the Royal Shakespeare Co. (with Diana Rigg and Judi Dench), a film of the New York City Ballet’s presentation (with Edward Villela and Suzanne Farrell) and several movies loosely based on the play, most notably Ingmar Bergman’s "Smiles of a Summer Night" and Woody Allen’s "A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy." But, surprisingly, there has been only one major studio production, from Warner Bros. in 1935, co-directed by the celebrated Austrian theater director Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle, based on Reinhardt’s Hollywood Bowl spectacle of 1934.

The reason for this paucity, compared with the multiple renditions of the Bard’s other comedies and tragedies, lies in the nature of a comedy that seems deceptively light, even frivolous, but is extremely complex. "Midsummer" contains libidinal confessions, surreal fantasies that get enacted, exuberant monologues about love and sex, quick changes of scenes, tones, and moods — all elements that do not lend themselves easily to the bigscreen. Among other things, the play furnishes strong support to the assertion that it was Shakespeare, not Freud, who discovered the unconscious and its power on human conduct.

Scanning Italy’s gorgeous landscapes, Hoffman’s interpretation begins on a high note. The moral context is set when a narrator tells the audience that these are new times, "the end of high collars and bustles." The mode of transformation is the bicycle, which plays a major part in the film, signaling the physical and psychological freedom of the characters as they embark on a recklessly intense journey into the night.

Preparations for the wedding of Duke Theseus (David Strathairn) and Hippolyta (Sophie Marceau) are under way, when the Duke is forced to listen to the complaints of opposing sides in a dispute over an arranged marriage. The old crusty Egeus (Bernard Hill) has promised his daughter Hermia (Anna Friel) to Demetrius (Christian Bale), but she loves Lysander (Dominic West). Hermia plans to elope with her lover to the woods, using a newfangled invention, the bike, but her best friend, Helena (Calista Flockhart), who is in love with Demetrius, knows of the plot.

Also bound for the same forest is a band of the village’s amateur players, searching for an isolated spot to rehearse their production of "The Most Lamentable Comedy, the Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe." Of the quintet of workmen, it’s Bottom the Weaver (Kevin Kline), who’s the most dilettante but also the most ambitious, wishing in his hammy way to get the play’s best parts, endlessly arguing with the company’s manager, Peter Quince (Roger Rees).

Both sets of lovers and the thesps are unaware that the dark forest is home of the fairies, where the trickster Puck (Stanley Tucci) administers a powerful love potion that causes the participants to change and mix their partners in a incorrigible, outrageous manner. Indeed, before long Puck becomes a pawn in the love games of the fairies’ king and queen, Oberon and Titania (Rupert Everett and Michelle Pfeiffer). Kline’s Puck is an older, tamer character than one might expect, and as a combined result of helmer’s subjective interpretation and Kline’s domineering screen presence, he becomes the center of the pic.

Like Reinhardt, Hoffman uses elements of Mendelssohn’s famous incidental music, but he uses less of it and enriches the score with excerpts from Bellini’s "Norma" and Verdi’s "La Traviata," as well as a new world-music score from Simon Boswell. Unfortunately, Hoffman employs the new historical and geographical setting rather conventionally, the same way James Ivory treated Italy in "A Room With a View" and other films.

Though Shakespeare’s comedy is strong enough to be done even in contempo costumes, this rendition does not really benefit from its locale other than offering nice shots by Oliver Stapleton, whose lensing, along with Luciana Arrighi’s production design and Gabriella Pescucci’s elaborate costumes, makes for a handsome and appealing production. Stumbling with pace, helmer also fails to imbue his movie with the sweeping, enchanting feel that gave "Shakespeare in Love" its mass appeal.

Vastly uneven, this "Midsummer" is a movie of good moments and scenes but quite as many flat ones. With all the special effects, the forest sequences lack the kind of magic possessed by a movie like "The Wizard of Oz," which, one suspects, is what Hoffman was striving for.

To be sure, the Warners version also suffered from an incongruous cast that included James Cagney, Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland and Joe E. Brown, and a tone that vacillated from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Similarly, in theory, one can understand the rationale for selecting each member of the cast, from the royal Everett and Pfeiffer to popular TV figure Flockhart. But striking as the large ensemble is, it reps different acting styles. It’s indicative that most thesps shine in their monologues rather than in the interactional scenes, where the incongruity becomes apparent.

There is not much chemistry between Pfeiffer and Everett, nor between Pfeiffer and Kline, particularly in their big love scene. Kline overacts physically and emotionally, Flockhart is entertaining in a broad manner and Pfeiffer renders a strenuously theatrical performance.

Overall, the Brits give more coherent and resonant performances, especially Friel and West as the romantic couple, a restrained Everett as Oberon, and Rees as the theatrical manager.

With a running time of 116 minutes, this "Midsummer" is shorter than the previous Hollywood version by half an hour.

Camera (DeLuxe color, widescreen), Oliver Stapleton; editor, Garth Craven; music, Simon Boswell; production designer, Luciana Arrighi; art directors, Maria Teresa Barbasso, Andrea Gaeta; set decorator, Ian Whittaker; costume designer, Gabriella Pescucci; sound (Dolby), Petur Hliddal; special effects supervisor, Antonio Corridori; associate producer, Nigel Goldsack; assistant directors, Gerry Gavigan, Inti Carboni; casting, Lora Kennedy. Reviewed at Sunset 5, L.A., April 27, 1999. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 116 MIN.