MovieChat Forums > Coriolanus (2012) Discussion > Hollywood cannot do it justice SPOILER ...

Hollywood cannot do it justice SPOILER ALERT!

posted 14 years ago by Demelz
4 replies | jump to latest

I read this in college and then a couple of times on my own. It was a revelation in being totally different from what I had encountered before. It did not come from a liberal viewpoint, but from a viewpoint of an older traditional society, with great emphasis on honor and pride in one's ancestors, and in one's background. Coriolanus is the doomed aristocrat. His values are very different from those today. He believes he must rule and scorns democracy. He despises the plebians. As we all know, the plebians won in life as well as in the play, in the west (not so much in other cultures). But Shakespeare makes you feel very sympathetic to the protagonist and his values. You feel sorry that he is defeated. I don't see how Hollywood will resist the temptation to give it some kind of PC twist and thus falsify it.

[–] zharkow 14 years ago

Fortunately then, it's set in Serbia which happens to be exactly that kind of old time-y place, with values out of sync with the western mainstream. Kind of perfect a setting.

So I doubt any punches will be pulled.

[–] larch-4 14 years ago

Demelz, I hope you are mistaken about the Hollywood angle here. As far as I know, Ralph is one of the producers, is directing the movie, and has the leading role. I don't think a) Hollywood will even get a look in the door, b) nor will
they be invited to twist or falsify anything. Anything Ralph does, in my book
will be as close to the original as it is possible. If, to get a US distribution, the US people want something changed, I think they will be whistling into the wind, if I know Ralph Fiennes. The fact that Coriolanus
is defeated, was always going to be the denoument. I'm really looking forward to seeing it next year, and am following the production as closely as it is possible to do from Australia. i enjoyed your thoughts.

[–] Lao_Che 12 years ago

hi, thanks for writing this. just watched coriolanus last night and your description cleared a few things up for me (in fact i'd never even heard of coriolanus before yesterday).

[–] raf-33 12 years ago

It's a British film, what does it even have to do with Hollywood?

With your feet in the air and your head on the ground, try this sig with spinach!