I'd have loved to see her go ALL out nontraditional casting and do something like Djimon Hounsou as Ariel and Tilda Swinton as Caliban. (Seriously - name me an actor who does Other better than Tilda Swinton.)

I'd have loved to see her go ALL out nontraditional casting and do something like Djimon Hounsou as Ariel and Tilda Swinton as Caliban.

Do you remember how Gene Siskel used to always critique movies based on the movie he wanted to see instead of the way the director chose to do it? And Ebert would always blow up and say, "That's all well and good Gene, but that's not the movie the director chose to make!"

I do understand you're critiquing the casting choice itself, though, which is fair game.

(Seriously - name me an actor who does Other better than Tilda Swinton.)

But Ariel is already an otherworldly character as well. Just, you know "airy."

Dilute the problematic effect, you mean...that sentence bothers me right there.

Yes, but it's problematic in a several ways. The problematic effect has to do with a cultural history, as well as what Caliban means specifically in the play.

Anyway, I'm not sure how you balance out the variety of issues in play.

I would never advocate being prescriptivist to the director. Nor would I say Djimon shouldn't be cast because he's black. I have less problem with a director saying he should be cast because he's black, mostly because black actors don't get a lot of opportunities to do Shakespeare on film and certainly not with a cast like that.

Still: Taymor is making an artistic choice in her casting, one that exploits the physical contrast Djimon offers with the white actors, based on elements of the text but willfully ignoring the historical issues of portraying a black man (a) as half-human; and (b) attempting to rape a white girl; (c) and being enslaved.

See now, halfway through that paragraph I was talking myself into a position against her casting, but by the end I was thinking, "Well, those are implications in Prospero's relationship to Caliban that could be foregrounded and investigated rather than diluted. Casting a black man actually reflects back on Prospero in a more complicated way."

Here's Javi Grillo-Marxuach's tweet on the the new movie:

julie taymor's films are the movie equivalent of a gorgeous, erudite but very difficult companion who may leave the party with someone else.

The problematic effect has to do with a cultural history, as well as what Caliban means specifically in the play.

The problematic effect has to do with what I read as you calling Djimon bestial, to be precise.

The problematic effect has to do with what I read as you calling Djimon bestial, to be precise.

I didn't presume my comment was happening in a vacuum, but enjoined already in a long running discussion where the terms and issues of race-blind casting would be understood as given.

If not, I'll clarify: there's nothing bestial about Djimon. But the issue is with casting a black man as a half-human, demonic, rapey character.

mostly because black actors don't get a lot of opportunities to do Shakespeare on film

The solution to this is not to limit black actors to explicitly described-as-black-in-the-text characters, especially when those characters are based on 400 year-old harmful stereotypes.

I read it as the character Caliban being bestial. Did I miss something?

It's not like we're talking about a Kenneth Branaugh production here.

Hey, even he cast Denzel, and I don't recall anything in the text about Don Pedro being black. (Though I do wish Branaugh had been a little less expansive and restricted his casting choices in that film to people who can act—sorry, Keanu.)

I read it as the character Caliban being bestial.

I guess if you accept that Djimon being black has anything to do with it, sure. I may be oversensitive on the topic, but I have a major disconnect getting to anything past "other." Accepting the equation of casting him for bestial qualities (beyond his ability to play bestial--the implication is clearly something inherent here) is further than I'm comfortable going.

Oh, how I love Denzel in Much Ado! Just brilliant in the role--he's hilarious in the trapping-Benedict scene with Robert Sean Leonard, and then unexpectedly yearning when he asks Beatrice if she'd have him as a lover/husband.