Okay, I'll bite: why late 19th century Tuscany? Even if Hoffman had no particular reason to suppose that his change of setting was for the worse (and I think it is, if only because it renders the fairies' references to `the Athenian' completely mystifying), he should PRESUME that his change is for the worse, unless he has good positive reason to think that it's for the better. Shakespeare's original setting is always the default setting. When will twentieth century directors, stage AND screen, get this through their thick skulls?
Now that I've said that I should add that the Tuscan photography is lovely. But the midsummer night's dream itself is all studio work, and it looks cluttered, and confused, and ugly, ugly, ugly. Any HINT of enchantment has been removed. To make matters worse, this is clearly an accident - they were so obviously TRYING to make the forest look beautiful, or at the very least striking, by night. I spent most of the time trying to suppress sympathetic embarrassment. To make matters worse STILL, the forest the characters see during the day is manifestly NOT the same forest they spend the night in. This is a more serious flaw than you might think. We never see a commonplace forest transformed: instead we see a commonplace forest, then a lousy studio set, then the forest again.
We're never allowed to forget that this is taking place in the 1890s. Bicycles and phonograph records litter the landscape. But I'm glad to see that this Tuscan town is so conservative a backwater that everyone is still whistling the music from `La Traviata'. Period opera music would be Puccini and Mascagni - but why bother with those two, when we have Verdi?
This is, as I've said, a weak and rather odd play of Shakespeare's, and I'm not sure Hoffman knew why he wanted to bring it to life. I get the feeling he doesn't know what to do with either his cast or his material. Kevin Kline does very well, mostly, although he needed to be tamed; but Calista Flockhart - bah. Still, I don't quite have the heart to say that the resulting movie is bad.
Now that I've said that I should add that the Tuscan photography is lovely. But the midsummer night's dream itself is all studio work, and it looks cluttered, and confused, and ugly, ugly, ugly. Any HINT of enchantment has been removed. To make matters worse, this is clearly an accident - they were so obviously TRYING to make the forest look beautiful, or at the very least striking, by night. I spent most of the time trying to suppress sympathetic embarrassment. To make matters worse STILL, the forest the characters see during the day is manifestly NOT the same forest they spend the night in. This is a more serious flaw than you might think. We never see a commonplace forest transformed: instead we see a commonplace forest, then a lousy studio set, then the forest again.
We're never allowed to forget that this is taking place in the 1890s. Bicycles and phonograph records litter the landscape. But I'm glad to see that this Tuscan town is so conservative a backwater that everyone is still whistling the music from `La Traviata'. Period opera music would be Puccini and Mascagni - but why bother with those two, when we have Verdi?
This is, as I've said, a weak and rather odd play of Shakespeare's, and I'm not sure Hoffman knew why he wanted to bring it to life. I get the feeling he doesn't know what to do with either his cast or his material. Kevin Kline does very well, mostly, although he needed to be tamed; but Calista Flockhart - bah. Still, I don't quite have the heart to say that the resulting movie is bad.