A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Another film post: in teaching ‘philo and film’, I’m focusing mostly on sf, but branching into speculation in a more metaphysical sense, and spectacle in a more purely visual sense. One slightly oddball pick I’ve made is the Reinhardt/Dieterle A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) [amazon].

It was released on DVD for the first time last year and I really cannot recommend it highly enough for sheer entertainment value, and several other values as well. It’s not exactly a forgotten film, but this late arrival on the DVD scene is a symptom of some slippage between the cracks. Yet it’s got a great, big name cast. James Cagney as Bottom, the Weaver:

Joe E. Brown as Flute, who will obviously make a lovely Thisby:

A young Mickey Rooney does an astonishing turn as Puck.

It was Olivia de Havilland’s first film. She’s Hermia. The irritating Dick Powell is irritating, but then … he’s playing Lysander. But what’s really stunning are the fairies.

Titania (Anita Louise):

And Oberon (Victor Jory):

You get some Arthur Rackham-looking gnomes or whatever they are:

There are some truly lovely ballet sequences, courtesy of Nini Theilade, who was choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska. You can see a video here.

I wouldn’t usually indulge in so many screencaps, but the film is just astonishingly lovely, from beginning to end.

And the play-within-a-play is pretty funny:

It’s more elegant than The Wizard of Oz. I don’t know another ‘fantasy’ film that does better until – I dunno, David Bowie in Labyrinth, maybe. Jory as Oberon is more successfully Tim Burton-y than anything Tim Burton has done to date.

The film is a musical achievement as well. Korngold’s Mendelsohn arrangements took action-soundtrack synchrony to a new level. Still, the film has a spotty critical reputation. Lots of critics in 1935 hated the likes of Cagney and Powell in these roles, and the film’s reputation has never really recovered, but I think it holds up. I think the decades of distance help us recognize some solid performances – at least by Cagney. (Powell is just annoying.) The Shakespeare gets seriously slashed, with the fairy/mechanicals material heavily played up. But I don’t personally object to making a 2-hour Midsummer, in which quite a bit of screen time is given over to dance and pure spectacle. It seems to me that regarding the fairy/mechanicals story – Bottom’s Dream – as the play’s authentic core, with the mismatched noble lovers almost incidental, is interpretively reasonable. Max Reinhardt was well-hated by some for his extravagant productions. (I remember reading some quip by Karl Kraus, complaining that Reinhardt’s sets were alive, and his actors were all made of plywood.) Well, I think it’s great. And Belle loves it, too.

Two thumbs up.

UPDATE: Hmmm, looks like the DVD was actually released in 2007. Not last year. Well, fine.