To re-make or not re-make? That is the question ...

Today's post is one of our occasional series, 'What I don't get ...', in which a brave member of the SPS community sticks their neck out and explains exactly what they think is wrong with a particular writer, book, or literary issue.  Here, Kiyo Brandreth-Stroud looks at the pros and cons - well, mostly the cons - of updating Shakespeare's plays to contemporary settings. Over to you, Kiyo ...

I want to start off by saying that this is very much an opinion piece and if you are someone who delights in bad movies, painful acting and bad scriptwriting then this article may not be for you.

All that glitters is not gold and that is certainly true when it comes to film adaptations of Shakespeare. It seems every few years a new Shakespeare inspired film arrives in the cinemas with a flashy trailer and the novel idea to set it in the modern-day. 

Funnily enough, they all seem to be about gangsters, guns and drugs which speaks volumes about the originality of such works. There is a reason that of the ten worst-rated Shakespeare adaptations (IMDB), nine of them are set in the modern-day. It is clear that there is something about these films that sets your teeth on edge and makes you wince with each painfully delivered line of Shakespeare’s finest poetry and prose.

We can diagnose almost every modern Shakespeare film remake with three problems. The first problem with these adaptations is cringeworthy and pointless additions to the plot that do not gel with the original Shakespeare. One of the most egregious offenders is Cymbeline (2014), a muddled retelling of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline filled with biker gangs, drug lords and guns.

aka Cymbeline (2014)

While the film does have some moments of clarity and decent acting, the plot is incoherent and the contemporary elements (guns, motorbikes, meth and ipads) seem to be little more than an ironically unoriginal attempt to seem unorthodox. Not to mention the dialogue: with constant references to 'Caesar' and 'Rome' in the 21st Century, it seems the scriptwriters were more busy choreographing the action scenes than writing the plot. Although, it must be commended for giving us such wonderful lines as 'has douth leather jackets.'

The second issue with these adaptations is the attempt to accompany the play with a separate social narrative which ends up undermining the original plot while also remaining low impact. This is underlined in perhaps the worst film I have ever watched, Rome and Jewel. 

A modern, interracial, Hip-Hop remake of Romeo and Juliet, with a tacky title, cheesy lines and acting eclipsed by a junior school play. I almost feel bad that it made less than 500 dollars on its opening weekend (wince). Turning all of Shakespeare’s lines into bad rap wears thin fast and the bluntness and lack of nuance in the film is jarring. Its attempt to take a stand against racism in Los Angeles is painful to watch and it takes nearly an hour and a half of meandering plot and bad acting to conclude that humanity should not be defined by colour. While the message was admirable, it confused Shakespeare’s original conceit and ironically failed to deliver the social narrative in any meaningful way. It seems directors are determined to ruin a perfectly good play in a dogged and yet doomed attempt to emphasise their message. A cynic would say that they would have been better just writing an essay. 1.2 million dollars better off, to be exact.

The third issue with these adaptations is the subversion of the plot and the disheartening butchering of the original Shakespeare. Every new film tries to reimagine Shakespeare, tries to make the audience feel a sense of justice, tries to add compassion to a film that lacks it. A great article by Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker gave some examples:

'We are asked to feel for Macbeth’s victims’ plight; given a discursive explanation of how Shylock came to behave as he does; presented with an understanding of why a woman might seem shrewish when she is only shy; shown Gertrude and Claudius grappling with their erotic compulsion toward each other in a manner essentially sympathetic to their entrapment.' ('Why Rewrite Shakespeare?', 17.10.16)

It seems that our wishful thinking, our desire to see moral justification and expansive reason added to Shakespeare is often what ends up ruining these adaptations. Our reimagining 'is hardly different from the eighteenth century’s insistence on tacking a happy ending on to King Lear.'  

Now I could name a number of films and books that have sabotaged their plot with wishful thinking, but one of the worst offenders is Romeo and Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss. You guessed it: Romeo and Juliet but with seals.

 

I am not going to lie: this film is bad for a whole host of reasons (spoilers if for some reason you were ever going to watch this car crash of a movie) but what really irked me when watching was the ending. Both Romeo and Juliet survived. Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, not a romance, something people seem to keep forgetting. Tragedy is a key part of the play,  so the entire concept is upheaved, the whole plot is subverted if Romeo and Juliet survive. Sam Adams of the Los Angeles Times called the film a 'genuine tragedy, although not in the Shakespearean sense.' The question remains, why rewrite Shakespeare?

So to sum up. Almost all modern remakes of Shakespeare have three problems: they are stuffed with pointless pop culture references, they try to accompany the Shakespeare with a low impact social narrative and they attempt to bring moral justification and happy endings to Shakespeare’s tragedies. A few honourable mentions to films that really ticked all three boxes and will forever be remembered for their butchering of Shakespeare. Macbeth on the Estate, an Oscar-worthy remake of the age-old tale with its shocking acting and its unedited script which really just does not make sense in the modern setting. 

A Midsummer’s Night Rave which really tries to compensate for its poorly edited script with cheap pop references. Gnomeo and Juliet, my guilty pleasure. Despite breaking all three of my rules; the plot is subverted, there are cringeworthy and pointless additions, bad reviews and occasional poorly implemented social narratives, and yet try as I might I cannot dislike this movie.

While there are some (very few) counter examples, in general, adaptations of Shakespeare set in the modern-day are painful to watch. It is clear that it is difficult to make a good modern-day adaptation and it seems they are destined to fail, maybe because the lack of originality of the concept seeps into the rest of the play, maybe because of our strange desire to see good in the bleak or maybe because the very concept of Shakespeare in the modern-day just does not work. That is why I hate adaptations of Shakespeare set in the modern-day.

Seal Romeo and Seal Juliet: their love will go on ...

In writing this piece, I have watched hour upon hour of bad remakes of Shakespeare. The sacrifice may not have been worth it and after watching the entire Romeo and Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss, I think I can never watch Romeo and Juliet ever again.