Much Ado About Nothing boasts a wide range of variation among its character relationships and emphasizes the differences and similarities between types of love. As a reader, it is natural to filter the main differences out in ones brain and classify each characters relationships and feelings on certain levels. Shakespeare develops definite pieces that register to the subconscious and help the reader combine personal experience, opinion and description into a clear idea of each characters love and reaction. Kenneth Branagh, in the 1993 film version of Much Ado about Nothing seems to flatten out these unmistakable deviations and portray many situations of love in a far too similar way. The relationships between the main characters of Much Ado about Nothing are much less believable in the movie than in Shakespeares original play.
When looking at the interactions between Don Pedro and Don John it is clear that something has gone afoul between the two brothers. Don Pedro openly receives his half-brother with forgiveness and understanding after the war they have fought against each other. The film does an excellent job of showing this piece of the play and Don Pedro offers a believable introduction that touches the audience with his genuine mercy. It is communicated well that Don Pedro is a generous and temperate kind of nobleman. Don John is supposed to be in constant conflict with him. We are meant to watch him plot deviant plans for revenge and constantly offer a foul disposition among the happy couples. While the film does show Don John as an antagonist, he is not truly portrayed as the snake-like villain Shakespeare means him to be.
While the lack of convincing manipulation and plotting does not necessarily take away from the story line of the film, it does create less of an emphasis on the relationship between the two brothers. Constant offerings of forgiveness and second chances on Don Pedros part highlight the brotherly connection between the two characters. Much of the conflict surrounds Don Johns contrasting nature to Don Pedro. Don Pedro is the most powerful and admired character in the play both socially and politically while Don John is very much a social outcast. He falls in the same age range as the pairs of lovers, yet he is not met with any love other than the forgiveness of his brother. Themes or sibling rivalry, intense jealousy and the internal struggle between doing good or evil are all amiss in Branaghs film. The depth of perception and relationship between brothers on different ends of a spectrum are important contributions to Shakespeares characters emotion. Not only does the relationship of the siblings seem underdeveloped but Don John is viewed as an unfortunate soul who doesnt portray much emotion here or there as Branagh directs. This removes the prominence of Don Pedros forgiving nature and deemphasizes the strength of love as a family member it must take to continuously pardon a half brothers never-ending commitment to devising dark schemes.
The central romantic love revolves around two couples, the first being Hero and Claudio. While the film makes these two leads easy to like by introducing them respectively as a stunning young beauty and a handsome soldier, the play unfolds in a more appealing way. The film version of Claudio expresses moodiness and flightiness from the very start, characteristics that are delayed and explained more fully in the play.
Hero is given a shy and adorable disposition in the film that is highly desirable but is not well matched with original interpretation. By giving the two young lovers a charming relationship of adoration and flawless infatuation, Branagh glorifies the idea of effortless love in a way that is impossible to believe is in agreement with Shakespeares original intentions.
Hero and Claudio represent a kind of silent love that seems to be accepted as naturally perfect. Both young lovers play safe and love one another from afar without question or deep thought. The amount of faith they place on each other at first sight proves to be much more dangerous in the play than Branagh allows in the film. Instead of climaxing to an awful and violent conflict when the gilded shell of unquestioned love is shattered, the film begins to repair the damage at once. As Claudio storms off, plans for forgiveness and redemption are already being made. Branagh offers a cheap solution with little thought or struggle that ultimately will conclude in redemption of Heros chastity and the reuniting with Claudio. A handful of characters rush to her aid and promise to help right the wrongs of slander and allegation.
Shakespeare brings readers down from the intense anti-wedding scene at a slower and more digestible pace. He doesnt offer the same cushion of support as Branagh does but still draws out an intelligent plan to get to the bottom of Claudios cruel claims. Hero suffers at the same intensity of Claudios rashness. It seems unrealistic and flowery to believe that Hero should immediately forgive all of Claudios public accusations and would find delight to be back in the untroubled haven of simple and traditional love. This one level of love is hammered into something flat and unmoving to form Branaghs film illustration of the first lover pair. No great emotional conflict should be met with an immediate quick fix as the movie portrays.
Benedick and Beatrice are constantly in a state of clashing with Hero and Claudio. As the two young lovers romance blossoms into engagement, the other pair is in a battle of wits, filled with dislike and disinterest for marriage. Alternately, as Hero and Claudio are torn apart through deception in the nigh and through confrontation at the altar, Benedick and Beatrice unexpectedly confess their mutual love and desire for one another. In Shakespeares play, they seem to be in a constant balance, seesawing between the actions of falling in and out of love. Once again, Branagh attempts to flatten the unceasingly fluctuating relationship between Beatrice and Benedick into either a state of in love or out of love.
Shakespeare presents these two leading characters as highly intelligent individuals stocked with inventories of literary references and witty comebacks. But more than this, Benedick and Beatrice embody a young love that is always questioning. While Hero and Claudio share a relationship of silence, these two represent a relationship of voice. A relationship in which alternating steps are taken and growth can be witnessed and marked gradually. Benedick and Beatrice toy with and dance around the idea of love in a way Hero and Claudio completely miss. Their individual processes of finding and falling in to love, while manipulated by outside sources, is an important and notable internal struggle of self-questioning. Instead of immediate acceptance, they understand complexity and dig deeper to fill in missing pieces as time passes. Instead of the constant vulnerability of infatuation, they each go through a period of opening themselves to changes and acknowledgement of devotion to one another.
The film does an impressive job of offering many of Shakespeares truths but does equal work of preventing others as well. It is true that there are different relationships in a state of continuous change going on at all times among the characters. It also true that there are a few different pairs of lovers under constant observation. But Branagh denies the full development of different types of love among these lover pairs. In relationships which possess the temperaments of Beatrice and Benedick or the hasty transformations of Claudio and Hero, the film does a poor job of accurately communicating the complications that will ultimately be met. When it comes to the subject of love, the fact is that such matters are not easily typed. While the film version of Much Ado about Nothing tells the story, it allows underdeveloped relationships to appear puffed up and approved of instead of tangled and damaging.
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