A Midsummer Night's Dream

This is a great movie. It's very enchanting.It's a movie that helps you to relax. It helps me to relax anyhow. I'm not sure how far off this is from Shakespeare's original play. It's probably pretty far off. Most movies are very far off from the book or play. That's unfortunate, but it's just the way things are. If you are looking for a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream that is very close to the play/book, you'll probably never find it. So you might as well just stick with this,or just read the book. The acting is superb! With Christian Bale and Anna Friel in the same movie, you can hardly get any better than that. The music is excellent and the screenplay. Everything is done very well in my opinion. The movie is a little bit silly, but then it's fiction.

Fun to watch version of Midsummer Nights Dream. Good quality.

I love this version of Midsummer Night's Dream...I previewed every version I could find on Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube and this is by far the best. First of all, Hermia and Helena have to be young and beautiful and Lysander and Demitrius have to be young and handsome...so how can you have a version when the lead actresses appear to be in their 30s or older...women got married young back then so it is ridiculous to even cast such actresses in the lead roles. In this version Hermia and Helena are indeed young and beautiful and Lysander and Demetrius are young and exceedingly handsome. The acting is very believable and unaffected...unlike acting done in movies by actors who are used to being on a stage and projecting their lines. The sets are amazing, the scenery breathtaking, the music moving and beautiful, and all the filming and lighting is gorgeous. It's a gorgeous movie overall and I really don't understand those who take issue with the points where it deviates from the original script...I felt it stayed extremely true to the spirit of the original play and included all the best lines from it...in no case was there modern language...it is Shakespearian language throughout, simplified a little bit at times when the meaning would have been obscured to most viewers. Michelle Phieffer is stunning as usual but absolutely radiant as the fairy queen Titania and the Puck in this version is amazing...just the right balance between mischievousness and good cheer. And Kevin Kline is absolutely brilliant as Bottom and his donkey get-up was the most believable and organic of all the other attempts to turn a man into a donkey. In short: bravo!!!

Got my 10yr old an "A" in his test on MidSummer Nights dream. He (and we) enjoyed the differences and similarities of how the play was being covered in school and I think it helped the story sink in. Some of the reviews seemed to think too much sex content, but kiddo barely noticed. I think we fast-forwarded for a minute or so towards the end when they are all waking up together.

One of Shakespeare's most beloved plays with a bit of everything in it is transfromed from Greece to a mythical duchy in Italy when bicycles were first introduced. It is such a romp and Puck has a part in the chaos of mistaken Identity by magic device. Stanley Tucci is wonderful as Puck. So is Michelle Pfiffer as Titania at odds wih Oberon played by Ruper Everett charming battlers over a boy from India. Bottom, played by Kevin Kline is wonderful and hammy as the stage struck miller who is becomes a real ass for a while but falls in love with the dream of the Queen of the Fairies. Calista Flockhart is delicious in her persuit of her man and with every disappointment utters and dispairing comic "Oh, spite." Beautifully costumed with fantasic fantasy characters that were real to Elizabethan audiences, you can believe in these fairies too.

First, the stars. No, not the astrologer's stars, the movie stars, goofy! Some of those high priced people can act! Of course, I'm in luck in that I see so few Hollywood movies that I don't recognize them, so it's easy to suspend disbelief. The one I did recognize was Stanley Tucci, the star of Big Night. Tucci was spectacular in the role of Puck; he stole every scene he appeared in. That guy Kevin Kline did a similar heist on all his scenes; he made Bottom the prime character of the story, with a little help from the editors and cinematographers, who played on his face - his foolish integrity, his dreams - almost any time when the script allowed. Whichever leading lady it was who played Helena was also "picture" perfect, and her scenes of squalling with Hermia were side-splitting funny. The only flop, as an actress, was Michelle Pfeiffer as the Queen of the fairies; luscious looking, yes, but she delivered her lines more stiffly than a seventh-grade cheerleader in English class. The setting in Italy was completely convincing; after all, most of the Eizabethan comedies were based on Italian models, with commedia dell'arte roots, and Elizabethans knew rather little about settings in Athens. The little touches of Italian opera - both visual and in the soundtrack - were deft and charming. The whole air of opulence suited the magic of the midsummer night like the smile on a pretty child's face. Oh yeah, and then there was the script. That Shakespeare guy has a future. [Yes, there were cuts, but the shortening of the play served one very useful purpose. It allowed the actors to defy the current notion that every line of Shakespeare has to be spoken so fast that no one can understand it well enough to be bored. Honestly, it was delightful to be able to follow every word for a change. True, the accents were a hodge-podge of Brit and American, but I for one didn't much mind.] A film of a play by Shakespeare should be at least as enjoyable for a modern audience as we all assume the Globe Theater production was for the flesh-and-blood Elizabethans. Bottom's bottom line: What fools these purists be!

Correspond à mes attentes, achat d'occasion, donc moins cher et en très bon état. Le dvd marche parfaitement bien! Autrement, il s'agit d'une belle adaptation de la pièce shakespearienne, qui fait bien écho aux répliques de l'œuvre.

Ein sehr schöner Film und sehr geistreich, definitiv etwas Manipulativ die Verwendung von Liebestränken, wiederum so fand das Ende für alles ein glückliches Happy End. Anfangs war ja das Problem das die die sich lieben und ehelichen sollte, das nicht konnten da die Liebe einseitig war und unerwiedert. Es war sogar das Problem vorhanden das beide Pärchen die ursprünglich da waren, offenbar mit der falschen Person zusammen waren. Denn nach Einnahme des Liebstrankes entbrannte, dann bei beiden Pärchen die Liebe zu der richtigen Person und sie konnten dadurch endlich erkennen wer für sie die richtige Person ist. Sogesehen kann man nun fluchen ein Liebestrank hat alles manipuliert und ihre Sinne vernebelt, ich bin kein Freund von Manipulation aber man kann klar erkennen das Shakespeare gute Absichten hatte, und er ein Ende erschuf wo die die Richtigen sich am Ende nun finden konnten, quasi war der Liebestrank das was ihnen die Augen öffenten und das Ende ist perfekt, dann am Ende war nun keiner mehr unglücklich. Keine unerwiederte Liebe wie anfangs, keine einseitige Liebe wie am Anfang, der ganze Schmerz und das Unglück darüber was anfangs vorhanden war durch eine unerwiederte Liebe, es war alles wie ausgelöscht durch den Liebestrank. Nun kann einer wettern das sei keine echte Liebe weil ausgelöst durch den Liebestrank, ich wage dem zu wiedersprechen: Liebe ist Liebe, wie und durch was diese Liebe ausgelöst wird ist doch nebensächlich. In dem Fall war der Liebestrank das was nachhalf das am Ende endlich sich die Richtigen füreinander vorbestimmten Menschen finden konnten und endlich ihr Glück fanden. Denn am Ende wirkten nacher die vertauschten Pärchen 10 mal glücklicher als in der ersten ursprünglichen Paar Konstellation. Diese kleine raffinierte, hinterlistige Bäumchen wechsel Dich Spielchen führte dazu, das die Richtigen für einander bestimmten Menschen sich endlich finden konnten. Der Film hat mir in einen Punkt die Augen geöffnet, Manipulation muss nicht immer in einer bösen Absicht erfolgen, denn diese ausgeübte Manipiulation mithilfe eines Liebestrankes bewirkte am Ende: Glück und Liebe, er ermöglichte das finden der Wahren Liebe, nach der der Mensch sich seit Uhrzeiten sehnt. Ein wunderbares und auch ein romantisches Ende, was auch den Ausdruck erinnert Liebe kann blind machen. Denn die Hauptdarsteller erkannten Anfangs ja gar nicht das sie beim falschen Partner zuerst waren. Das Ende so wie es am Ende war machte alle am Ende glücklich, sogar die Eltern der Pärchen. Im echten Leben sollte man freilich selber seine eigene Entscheidung treffen bei der Partnerwahl und sich nicht von den Eltern beeinflussen lassen. Aber das ist ja das schöne an diesem Ende, es ist ein Ende das alle glücklich macht. Besser kanns gar nicht mehr gehen. Shakespeare hat ein wunderbares Talent für Geschichte schreiben und tut dies auf eine sehr romantische, poetische, verspielte, geistreiche, wortwitzige Art und Weise, natürlich muss man diese alte Sprache auch kennen um sie verstehen zu können. Der Film ist ein Meisterwerk.

The movie is lively and colorful and brings the play to life. I would recommend using it when teaching the original script to high school students. The use of bicycles is innovative and brings in a modern perspective. Hermia and Helen are a bit too similar in size (it adds to the humor if Hermia is much smaller), but are convincing. An added bonus are Bottom's acting (Kevin Kline) and the Mechanicals' play. Kline brings in a great deal of depth, and rather than viewing him as "monstrous" and ridiculous, we actually feel sympathy for him and can perceive Titania and Bottom as types of Beauty and the Beast. In addition, towards the end of the Mechanicals' play Pyramus & Thisbe, the actor playing Thisbe (Sam Rockwell?) stops the ridiculous mannerisms and switches into brilliant, moving acting that reveals suddenly what great performances can do. Shakespeare used the Mechanicals' "medieval style" skit as foil to his own professional play, a type of meta comment on the differences between the old style and the new, professional, modern (Elizabethan) approach. The little twist in acting by Thisbe in a sense contradicts this intention, yet simultaneously focuses attention on what makes performance convincing.

Una película agradable con actuaciones de Michelle Pfeiffer quien fue el motivo por que la compré, Kevin Kline, Christian Bale, Stanley Tucci y Rupert Everett y Calista Flockhart. Basada en la obra de Shakespeare. El dvd tiene subtítulos en Español.

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