MovieChat Forums > Coriolanus (2012) Discussion > Ego trip for Ralph Fiennes?

Ego trip for Ralph Fiennes?

posted 12 years ago by Hayden-Thomas
7 replies | jump to latest

I have just got back from seeing this movie and I have not read the play. I am 19 years old and enjoy Shakespeare, I love Kenneth Branaghs movie adaptations of Hamlet, Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing but this film I know no more about Coriolanus than I did when I went in apart the fact he was a soldier who came home and got voted as counsell or something or other then got driven out went mad grew a beard and then became friends with Gerard Butler yet they were fighting at the start. I don't know why they became allies the film was so confusing to me and to all the people in the cinema who I heard talking about it. My mum is 65 and she is a very intelligent woman and even she did not understand it and she normally understands most Shakespeare. When Kenneth Branagh made his films he did it to bring Shakespeare to the masses and make regular people understand and enjoy Shakespeare where as Ralph Fiennes seems to make a film just to make him look good as an actor. Gerard Butlers part was extremely insignificant in my eyes he was barely even in it although I have not read the play so maybe it was meant to be like that.

Why did Butler maintain his Scottish accent? The way I see this film is Ralph Fiennes obviously understands it and it seems patronizing to people who don't he didn't try to make people understand it he just made it the way he thinks it should be.

Just my opinion but I would love to hear someone maybe explain what it's all about and whether the people who rave about it are the people who are too afraid to say they don't understand Shakespeare and just praise it because they think it makes them look intelligent.

[–] smorgasbord222 12 years ago

The plot of Coriolanus is one of the more difficult ones to follow, because it's steeped in politics.

I haven't had the opportunity to see it yet, but a few things:

-It seems like you got a fair amount of the movie, despite your snark-filled summary of events. The only part you missed is that Coriolanus asks Aufidius to use him as an instrument of revenge against the empire that's betrayed him.

-Gerard Butler plays Aufidius, and while it's a crucial role, it's not heavy on stage-time.

-I don't understand why Butler having an accent affects the movie in the least. What did you want him to do?

As I said, I haven't seen it yet, so I have no idea how successful it is at bringing the text to life. But the vast majority of reviews are positive, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you just needed to pay closer attention during one crucial scene.

[–] SmallClanger 12 years ago

I suggest that the plot of Coriolanus is relatively straightforward. It is succinctly described on the main IMDb page for this film:-

"The citizens of Rome are hungry. Coriolanus, the hero of Rome, a great soldier and a man of inflexible self-belief despises the people. His extreme views ignite a mass riot. Rome is bloody. Manipulated and out-maneuvered by politicians and even his own mother Volumnia, Coriolanus is banished from Rome. He offers his life or his services to his sworn enemy Tullus Aufidius. Coriolanus and Aufidius march on Rome intending to destroy the city. Volumnia appeals to her son. He tries to reject her but eventually breaks. Aufidius, feeling bitterly betrayed, brutally murders Coriolanus."

Any director of a play brings his or her own interpretation to it, so why criticise Fiennes for having his own view of the play? I think that this is a striking contemporary interpretation of a great work. Shakespeare is for "regular people" - the idea that there's something snobbish or affected about enjoying Shakespeare is a sad one.

As well as themes of politics and war, the play deals with a man who cannot adapt to circumstances, and who is the product of a domineering mother. Think of Volumnia as a sort of uber-tennis mom, although in this case the tennis is the sacking of cities. "Come back with your shield, or on it", and all that.

The original historical setting, by the way, is that of the early Roman Republic, when Rome was just one City State amongst many in Italy, and had not yet established dominance over the peninsula, let alone over the Mediterranean and beyond. Tullus Aufidius leads one of the rival peoples which rival the Romans. Setting the play in a contemporary Balkan conflict, with warring small states, tyrants and demagogues, seems to me a good idea.

[–] Dantès 12 years ago

I don't buy it. Ralph Fiennes doesn't need help to make himself look good as an actor. He's a very good actor and most people already know it.

Just one other point: about Butler's accent: Butler isn't a great actor. Maybe he can't do accents. I'd rather listen to someone speak in their natural voice than make a bad attempt at a foreign accent. Sean Connery is another good example; I think he knows that he sucks at accents, which is why he's always been Scottish, even if playing an Irish cop, Russian captain or Spanish swordsman.

[–] Filigree10 12 years ago

Why did Butler maintain his Scottish accent? The way I see this film is Ralph Fiennes obviously understands it and it seems patronizing to people who don't he didn't try to make people understand it he just made it the way he thinks it should be.

If Aufidius is the leader of a hostile neighbouring state, it makes perfect sense to have him use a different accent. Given the recurring animosity between the English and the Scots through history, I think that giving Coriolanus an upper-class English accent and Aufidius a Scots one helps to represent the conflict between the two states.

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] medoralim 12 years ago

Ego trip for op

[–] Edward_de_Vere 12 years ago

First of all, I think that Gerard Butler was terribly miscast as Aufidius, but otherwise I enjoyed this adaptation. To answer your question about "what it's all about," and why we should care, where's what I wrote on another thread, explaining why I consider Coriolanus to be one of Shakespeare's most underappreciated plays, and why it remains relevant today:

Among all of Shakespeare's plays, Coriolanus is by far the one that is most politically relevant today, both in the US and abroad. Perhaps this is why Fienne's adaptation is one of the few modernizations of Shakespeare that I actually enjoyed (i.e. compare with recent attempts to do the same with Romeo and Juliet or Titus Andronicus).

The reason it remains relevant is that it tells a story of a great and noble man whose reputation and career were dragged down by the rabble and by the opportunistic political hacks who come to power by posing as "voices of the common people." So instead of statesmen capable of making courageous but unpopular decisions that serve the long-term needs of a nation, then and now, we get populist charlatans who pander to the masses.