Attn Shakespeare on Film fans: New adaptation of The Tempest by Julie Taymor

She did a brilliant job with Titus, so I'm really looking forward to this.

Film info:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1274300/

And some on-set pics:

http://splashnewsonline.celebuzz.com/2008/12/on-set-with-the-tempest.html?bfm_index=0&bfm_page=0

He was fucking fantastic in Titus. :bounce:

Julie Taymor has a history of taking big risks...some revolutionize the interpretation of an adapted work and some go splat making the film product unwatchable.

I have an uneasy feeling based on what I've heard and seen. A female Prospero renamed Prospera. The injection of gender politics. Ariel is typically played by a male but as androgynous, here she has cast a very masculine-looking actor in heavy-browed, strong-jawlined Ben Whishaw. Djimon Hounsou's costume, make-up and dress to play Caliban more suggest 19th c. plantation slave than demon, potentially invoking sympathy rather than sense of evil.

I could see this going very very wrong...but I had the same bad feeling about her use of automobiles and reframing of the character of Saturninus (played by Alan Cumming) as flamboyant and urbane in Titus and that ended up being her best work to date.