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Shakespeare was considered an obedient resource for the adaptation of films ever since Franco Zeffirelli’s famous version of Romeo and Juliet in 1968 which has been glorified till this very second. History has distorted the fact that even though Zeffirelli single-handedly entered the industry with the adaptation, it was his second attempt at an English-speaking saga and he attained massive popularity even when there was no immediate market for it. The impertinence that stemmed the crop of the highly influential Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet had a wide range of audiences enabling Zeffirelli to grasp English-speaking cinema. His first attempt at it was with the disastrous film from 1929 renowned to everyone as a true nightmare.
That checkered history alone would, I imagine, give any person a reason to hesitate. For my part, living in 1967, I could compile an impressive list of reasons to believe this would be a terrible flop. There is, for starters, the matter of The Taming of the Shrew itself In terms of Shakespeare’s most inelegant pieces, this is, sadly, one of the most out of touch. It suffers from a terribly repetitive second half wherein a famously difficult closing scene splits patrons. That scene is either an incredibly deeply crafted satire of patriarchal views or in my guess, an endorsement of those views that were very happy and frank even for the late 1590s. Then, there’s the complication that this is one of the comedies, and as is well known, comedies have always had much harder struggles at the box office in terms of movies compared to tragedies or histories. In more than ninety years of sound cinema, there has been precisely one that the public opinion agrees is at least decent. That would be the 1993 rendition of Much Ado About Nothing.
As of 1967, this might not have raised eyebrows as it should have, seeing as, by this time, and for all amalgamated genres cared, no Shakespeare work has been adapted into a significant mainstream film since the 1930s, and the few that were produced during that decade were quite terrible. To add to all of this, after a few casting changes, The Taming of the Shrew had morphed into a project for the real-life couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (the former of whom had no training in acting, learning so much on set that she had to ask to have her earliest scenes, which were shot during the first week of filming, thrown out), who a few years earlier had starred against each other in that great circus called Cleopatra.
Through all of its faults, The Taming of the Shrew remarkably managed to become a great success. Oddly enough, it is quite a good film too. The movie version dismantles the play and puts it back together in a way that, rather astonishingly, feels like it was created for the Cinematic world from the outset. The film does not seem to have been constructed in the traditional manner associated with Elizabethan theatre (It goes without saying, that there is no “play within a play” framework). It is a smooth enough modification: Lucentio, a nobleman and student who newly arrived to Padua, was set up as our introduction to the world and Michael York (weak baby Michael York, with “and introducing” title card) does not make it out of ten minutes. One of those bits you may or may not know is The daughter of Baptista the rich man, Bianca, has a love interest in Lucentio (Natasha Pyne), alongside her posing as a Latin teacher while Tranio portrays Lucentio (who is supposed to be a lady).
However, Baptista has emphasized that no amount of suitors wanting to win the heart of Bianca is going to work until her older daughter, the hot-tempered Katherine, is married off. So they will have to wait. Enter Petruchio (Burton), a self-indulgent, gold-digging man who is more than willing to tolerate heavy amounts of anger, as long as it’s directed at him as he sits upon the wealth that Baptista has to offer. So back to that incomplete rearrangement of the material. Unintelligent in Bianca pu of shaspect to give o III o b celebrities templo onscreen to shaspect he of the accent. They have made the Lucentio/Bianca material too simplistic which means those opening minutes with York end up feeling like a false prologue. It is unfortunate York isn’t quite as good as he would be in the Romeo and Juliet set where he gives one of the best performances I’ve seen. But I digress, he is pretty damn good. Come on, he completely nailed looking like a young boy staring blankly at the enormous city in awe as he falls in love and speaks at an absurdly quick pace that makes me take my hat off to Mister Shakespeare for the comedies trying to put in without words and for screen posing. False prologues are never a good thing.
The film is, one way or another, primarily focused on Burton and Taylor. As such, Zeffirelli made the very important decision of treating this film like a modern stunt comedy and proceeded to direct it as such. While Taylor hisses and snaps while she speaks, a hint of anger in her voice, and seeming as if she didn’t fully finish “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, she proceeds to roll her eyes and gasp dramatically while Burton speaks. It is clear that the actor is having a lot of fun, vulgar boorishness has never looked this good. He seems equal parts Falstaff and Petruchio; overly exuberant, loud, and drunkenly content. It’s on the atypical side of his portrayal of the role and causes problems it should be more obvious that Petruchio is putting on an act for Kate, but it is incredibly entertaining. It is, as one of the most relaxed and lively performances that Burton has put in his whole career, completely surprising. “Petruchio” stands out as an example of an actor who comprehends every single word of a Shakespearean script and fully knows the motivation in the lines that his character is delivering.
The Taming of the Shrew’s puns can be stretched to the extreme, frankly, but Burton manages to pull them off in such a casual and rough way.
But and this is particularly crucial to why the thing works it was a smart decision that Zeffirelli does not have the leads act as if they are in some sort of comedy which the side characters seem to do. Lynch, for instance, even breaks the fourth wall to deliver a camera-boggle eyepiece. Rather, he allows the things we would associate with a comedy to happen to them Sound effects that can only be described as mildly wacky (including a moment where, god bless it, a bolt of lightning accentuates a significant speech), exaggerated physical comedy, tons of background actors making silly faces. For Taylor and Burton, emphasis on the battle this is still a contest of wits. They do a superb job of portraying the early stages of the relationship when it remains tense and hostile. And Kate is at her most blatantly angry. This means that the softening of that character is a much harder sell the notorious monologue at the end is especially how to parse as a result – but not as good as the nasty-minded “courtship” anyway, so it’s not a huge loss.
Another detail that is very straight is the setting. There are some wonderful street sets that are Oscar-nominated as they perform so seamlessly. These look to be busy with life and the filmmakers ceaselessly keep them encapsulated in rain. If nothing else, the English language signage all around Padua and Verona kills off any shred of the illusory the film attempts to create. The even lighting and general cleanliness also add to an artificial feeling, but there are no polished stagey vibes. It is a stagy overstuffed as if they are trying too hard scenario, with lots of props, furniture, and overly cluttered corners. Kate’s and Petruchio’s world is sprawling in a colorful disarray and that aids the film by rooting it in a living environment.
Yes, that is the word: living. The Taming of the Shrew, above all, is a lively movie, moving fast, constantly noisy, and visually stimulating with Nino Rota’s score as the cherry on top and full of opportunities for the actors to do all sorts of business. Perhaps it’s because he’s adapting a comedy or perhaps because it is this comedy that Zeffirelli appears unconcerned with his film having a prim and dignified feel to it. It is a loud, sprawling film and even if, like so many films, it never comes close to the level of “funny,” it is still bright and alive. It does not provide answers to any of the issues an adaptation of this play ought to be addressing, but at the very least it is cheerful entertainment a quality far too many Shakespearean adaptations in the following half-century have willfully neglected in their pursuit of being esteemed.
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