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To fill in time in Wellington one wet afternoon between Parsifal performances, I joined about six other people to watch the recent film of Tristan and Isolde –definitely not a film of Wagner's opera! As I heralded the making and arrival of the film in previous issues of the Newsletter, I felt that I had to see it.
All in all I agree with the comments by Manohla Dargis in his review for The New York Times of 13 January 2006: He began by noting how basic love story plots are rehashed, sometimes well, sometimes indifferently (I would say mostly badly): “Not all great love stories are the same; they just sometimes seem that way in Hollywood, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. In the new [film] they find "a place for us" (see "West Side Story"), discover that "parting is such sweet sorrow" ("Romeo and Juliet") and learn, to their peril, that "men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way" ("When Harry Met Sally").”
Dargis was complimentary about Sir Ridley Scott's involvement that “may help explain the film's fine production values as well as the pervasive air of seriousness, both of which work to its advantage. …"Tristan & Isolde" has nothing new to say about either love or filmmaking, but that, too, isn't necessarily a bad thing.” I found the film both beautiful to look at and disturbingly realistic in its invocation of the brutality of war and mediaeval life.
With his tongue a little in his cheek, Dargis notes some basic plot information that Wagner only refers to in character's reminiscences: “Tristan…has washed up on the emerald isle, wounded and in a state of extremely photogenic distress. Isolde, the daughter of the tyrannical Irish king, Donnchadh (the vigorous scene-chewer David Patrick O'Hara), has carted the wounded warrior into the cave, where she warms his body with hers [and the Brangäne character whom she orders her to join her in clasping Tristan's naked body!], instructs and heals his wounds with medicinal herbs. Tristan returns home to his lord and surrogate father, Marke (a very effective Rufus Sewell), who is trying to join together the fractious English tribes against the Irish. In a scheme to wrest even more power, Isolde's super-mean father decides to auction her off to the best English warrior…. Tristan wins Isolde's hand, but not for himself. Isolde marries Marke and scurries around the palace with Tristan, throwing caution and perhaps even the fate of a unified nation to the wind.” From this summary, any Wagnerian can tell that there are many differences from Wagner's work, which starts about halfway through the film's account of the story.
What Dargas does not tell us is how effective, at least for me, was the recreation of something approaching a “real” or “basic” version of the Tristan and Isolde story out of which one could easily see later poetic, “minstrelish” embellishments, including Wagner's growing like lush vegetation from the root story. Kevin Reynolds, aided by the production designer, Mark Geraghty, created for me a convincing account of what it might have been like to be star-crossed lovers in the middle of a brutal power struggle between the kings of Ireland and Cornwall for control of the (British) isles. The sets of crumbling castles being rebuilt after sacking or of castles at the height of their master's powers were impressive. The costuming was rich in the court and ragged in the villages. Fight scenes, both in battle and on the jousting ground, were convincingly bloody and physical.
The acting, however, was something of a mixed bag. The mostly British cast, including a very impressive Rufus Sewell as Marke, gave the film more substance than it would otherwise have possessed if all the characters had been played by actors of the “calibre” of the extraordinarily handsome James Franco as Tristan. If he had never had to open his mouth, Franco might have gotten away with it, but, sadly, he did open his mouth but only to gargle and mumble his lines in ways worthy of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now ! This inadequacy was underlined anytime he had to communicate with Sewell or even his lovely Isolde, played and spoken with delight and skill by (I suspect another Brit) Sophia Myles. Franco was matched, almost in looks and mumbling, by Henry Cavill's Melot, Tristan's friend from boyhood until he betrays Tristan for power.
All in all a film to watch on big screen video. Oh, and keep an ear out for Isolde post-coitally reading to Tristan what I think are John Donne sonnets– about 500 years early!
Terence Watson
This Page was last updated on:
22-Jul-2006
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