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RAVISHINGLY TIRESOME The outstanding feature of Franco Zeffirelli’s The Taming of the Shrew is its brown glow sumptuousness. Under the guidance of chief art directors Renzo Mongiardino and John De Cuir and photographer Oswald Morris, it’s a Shakespeare production as ravishment, the likes of which we won’t experience again until Branagh’s Hamlet. Filmed at the Dino De Laurentiis studios in Rome, the ornamented sets are operatic, and so are the playful crowds, yet never over-scaled; this Padua looks lived in. But this Shrew isn’t really Shakespeare, it’s Shakespearesque and that’s okay as it’s not a particularly impressive play and if you’re going to use free-form, then, what the hell, put in Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and let them have at it. For a while Burton is terrific and looks equally so in his boozy kaleidoscope getups. He loses steam when the battle of the sexes goes on too long and it’s too long by twenty tiring minutes preceeding the finale. Having just come off Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and its influence, Taylor can’t shake the Martha growling, nor the pounds, and you’d be hard-pressed to find much of Katharina in most of her reduced utterances. Her limitations in cultured speech and voice remain and those grimaces she employs for comedic effect frequently throw us out of the expensive milieu, though she’s having her own fun making fun at her MGM inefficiencies as party time slapstick. She delivers, however, a not-so-minor triumph at the conclusion: looking foxy in red and in a headdress appearing to be gold-laden wire, she undertakes without embarrassment a recitation of Bard lingo and finally gives Burton a screen smooch not faked. (Something Saturday Review’s Hollis Alpert said—having pride in her finish—resonates.) Michael York and his boxer’s nose make their screen début. The supporting actors, including Cyril Cusack, Michael Hordern, Victor Spinetti and the energetic extras, are spreading a contagion of merriment. (The director said making the movie was the most fun he ever had.) Music by Nino Rota; Oscar-nominated costumes by Irene Sharaff and Danilo Donati. Also nominated for art-set direction. Burton won the David di Donatello Best Foreign Actor trophy; Morris won the British Society of Cinematographers honor for best photography. A big international hit. In Panavision, with 70mm blowup. (Opening 4/21/1967 at the Loop, running 23 weeks.). ROLL OVER IMAGE & LINKS
Text COPYRIGHT © 2001 RALPH BENNER All Rights Reserved. |
