'Just imagine you've been marooned on a deserted island
'for 12 years...'
when, amazingly,
the men who conspired to put you here,
are shipwrecked in a storm
and are washed up, defenceless, onto the same shore.
They're at your mercy.
So what are you going to do?
'This is a story of anger and the search for revenge,
'of paternal love and sacrifice, all unfolding in a magical world.
'Along the way, we'll see a creature that's barely human,
'an airy spirit conjured from the elements,
'a storm which stops as mysteriously as it began.
'It sounds like a work of science fiction,
'yet it comes from the imagination of a man writing 400 years ago.'
It's the last complete play by William Shakespeare.
It's The Tempest.
Subtitles by MemoryOnSmells http://UKsubtitles.ru. Support Us and Donate.
'I directed The Tempest with Ralph Fiennes in the leading role in 2011.
'It was a play I'd always wanted to do.
'Alas, nothing of our work was filmed,
'but what still intrigues me about this play
'is what it tells us about Shakespeare himself.
'It's more ambitious than anything he'd written before,
'more radical in the ideas it explores
'and more imaginative in the kind of staging it demands.
'And yet, he was in his latter years when he set himself this challenge.'
Astonishingly, what he decides to do
at the end of his writing lifetime is an experiment.
This is an experimental play that requires people to fly,
spirits to emerge and shape-shift,
apparitions, disappearing acts.
It's all experiment.
'This was his last complete play.
'I think it's also one of his most personal, almost autobiographical.
'It's even possible that Shakespeare, who was also an actor,
'could have played the leading role himself.'
Shakespeare would have been 50 at the point of this play.
Prospero's 50.
Did he play Prospero? Why not?
I mean, is it not only his last play, but his last performance?
'The Tempest is the story of one man and a choice he must make.
'The man is Prospero, Duke of Milan,
'who's been betrayed by his brother,
'cast away on a boat with his tiny daughter, Miranda.'
That's extraordinary!
'Left to their fate, they survive,
'marooned on a deserted island for 12 years.
'Prospero is no ordinary man.
'He's a Magus, a magician who commands spirits and the elements.'
Special effects!
'Through this magic, his art,
'he has discovered that his treacherous brother
'and co-conspirators will pass his island on their ship.'
Here are the villains.
'He conjures up a tempest that hurls his enemies onto his shore.
'But what will he do with them?
'What will happen when his past and present lives collide?
'This play will ask huge questions.
'How do we become the people we are?
'What does it mean to be human?
'And what happens when, for the first time, we fall in love?
'While the play tackles all of these issues,
'a central theme is the relationship between a father and his daughter,
'alone together for 12 years.'
I think the relationship between Prospero and Miranda
is one of the great interests and sort of puzzles of the play,
because, really, the action kind of rests on it.
I have done nothing
But in care of thee.
'There's obviously a lot of love there.
'It's a very, very intimate relationship,
'but also, from Prospero's side,
'there's a real sense of controlling...'
of her and controlling of her personality
and wanting her to do certain things and not do other things.
And so, immediately, there's a kind of tension there.
Lend thy hand,
And pluck my magic garment from me.
'Since the age of three,
'her father has been the only person in her life.'
'This play is a paternal fantasy
'about the daughter that I could raise...'
if I had her to myself,
if I didn't have mothers coddling her
and I didn't have other people getting in the way
of the person that she could become if I were to shape her.
Lie there,
My art.
'Controlling he frequently is,
'but Prospero's clearly devoted to his daughter.'
He says, kind of, "You saved my life because YOU were in the boat,
"then I felt there was something worth living for."
It's very, very potent between the two of them.
'It's an arresting premise,
'a father and a daughter surviving a nightmare journey,
'drifting in an open boat before finally reaching an island.
'Shakespeare has invented a story of people...'
surviving, marooned on a bare island.
'They don't really know where they are.'
This is 150 years ahead of Robinson Crusoe.
'So where did Shakespeare get this idea from?
'We know he had access to the London bookstalls
'and we know that, like screenwriters today,
'Shakespeare re-worked and embellished existing plots.
'But uniquely, for this play, there was no existing fictional story.
'It's possible that Shakespeare was influenced by a real event.'
"Chapter VI. A true repertory of the wracke
"and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates Knight,
"upon and from the Ilands of the Bermudas."
'It's quite clear...'
that one of the most important events that Shakespeare
almost certainly must be drawing on
is the expedition of a ship called the Sea Venture
that sets out for the Americas in the summer of 1609.
Around 500 people are on this boat, and it disappears.
"I. A most dreadful Tempest."
We know it's actually stranded in Bermuda,
but from the contemporary perspective, this is a disaster.
"So huge a sea broke upon the poope and quarter upon us
"as it covered our ship from stern to stem
"as it rushed and carried the Helm-man from the helme
"and wrested the whipstaff out of his hand
"and all us about him on our faces."
There are many accounts - William Strachey is the famous account
that Shakespeare may have had access to...
but there are any number of other little pamphlets that report
this drastic and difficult expedition.
"Sea breakes in. Leak cannot be found which cannot but be found.
"The waters still increasing, we were now sinking."
These sorts of episodes are absolutely embraced
by the reading public in early 17th-century England.
This sort of voyage of discovery,
these abilities to imagine yourself a little person
perhaps in Southwark imagining themselves
in the Isle of Bermudas or the Indies or in the Americas.
"Utter darkness. Their labour for life
"three dayes and foure nights."
'And, just as with Shakespeare's story,
'all the shipwrecked passengers survived.'
So then, a year later, or almost a year later, in May 1610,
the wrecked people have managed to create their own boat
and they arrive in Jamestown.
It seems to me that it's just too much of a historical coincidence
that these same themes of individuals being shipwrecked
on an island in the middle of nowhere,
who somehow eventually are recovered and go on their way...
it's too much of a coincidence not to have been used by Shakespeare.
'So Shakespeare may have been influenced by that real event,
'but how was he going to get his Magus
'to create a shipwreck on stage?
'Shakespeare needed a way of manipulating
'what his audience were seeing and hearing.
'Finding new ways of playing with light and illusion.
'But his theatre, the Globe, was open to the sky - hardly ideal.
'Flying spirits would need be suspended from a ceiling,
'disappearing acts needed darkness.
'He needed a theatre with a roof where they could act by candlelight.
'At the Globe today, they still recognise that problem.'
Clearly, a lot of the atmosphere of this magic world of the play
would have been so much more potent in an interior candlelit space
than in an open-air space where you would see it in the afternoon.
Candlelight is a massive game changer.
It makes light sources unspeakably powerful.
If you walk onto the Globe stage with a lantern, you look like
an idiot, cos it's meaningless. If you come into a darkened room
with a lantern, and that's the only light source in the room,
you're a very powerful presence.
'So Shakespeare and his company
'took over an existing indoor theatre, the Blackfriars.
'No-one knows exactly what it looked like.
'But across the Atlantic, a reconstruction has been created.'
'In Staunton, Virginia, they're rehearsing
'the opening scene of The Tempest.
'The shipwreck.'
Boatswain!
Here, master. What cheer?
Good. Speak to the mariners.
Heigh, my hearts! Cheerly, my hearts! Yare!
'This is a daytime rehearsal with the house lights on,
'but it reveals another demand of the play...
'dramatic sound effects.'
The beginning of The Tempest has this huge storm.
So trying to figure out how Shakespeare might have staged it
when he didn't have smoke machines,
he didn't have the special effects that we have in the 21st century,
so trying to figure out how we can aurally create
the idea of a big huge storm is what we were after.
We've got all of these acoustic instruments
that could have been something like what Shakespeare had,
because he had the same issue that we did.
How do you get a huge storm and a shipwreck
in the Blackfriars playhouse?
'It's like the beginning of a film.'
The Tempest as a play takes you by the throat immediately.
It opens in the middle of this storm, we're on a ship.
Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of King? To cabin!
'The ship is going down, there are sailors running across the stage,
'the guests on the ship running the other way.'
No-one knows what's going on.
'At this stage, not even the audience knows what's really going on,
'because, in fact, nothing is what it seems.'
Take in the topsail!
'These elements of high drama and magic
'have inspired many different film versions,
'but at the centre of every Tempest is this strange Magus character,
'the betrayed duke, Prospero.
'He's created the storm, he's stage-managing all the action.
'No-one on the ship will be harmed, but they, of course, don't know that
'and they're terrified.'
We are in the company of a great magician, conjuror, alchemist
who can control the elements
and indeed, almost control people's destinies.
Somebody who seems to be playing at God.
Therefore, he's somebody to be feared.
'Do we trust Prospero? I don't know.'
He's conjured up this storm from nothing. He's made it go away again.
He's actually brought the ship safely into harbour
and he's deposited its passengers very carefully
in different parts of the island, and it's clear
that Prospero is setting this up
because he wants to control this plot.
He's going to bring them together when he wants them to be together.
'And we don't really know what is going to result from that.'
'He's brought his enemies to the same island
'on which he struggled ashore. They are in his power.
'The play hinges on a moral question. What will he decide to do with them?'
Prospero begins The Tempest as somebody who is... metaphorically,
as well as literally, on an island. He's stuck with himself,
and all that he's had to say to himself for years is,
"I was treated badly. I was treated badly."
'Prospero is very human because he wants'
to take revenge and he wants it to be extreme.
He really wants to hurt the people who have hurt him.
Prospero is a profoundly angry, bitter, enraged person,
enraged, with absolute reason,
absolutely rightfully enraged.
'But definitely with a burning rage inside of his belly.'
'Prospero doesn't ever spell out the intentions he has.'
One of the main questions of this play is,
will Prospero be capable of forgiveness?
If by your art, my dearest father, you would put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
'Having depicted the angry Magus, the play then reveals Prospero, the reassuring father.
'He tells his daughter for the first time how they became castaways.'
How came we ashore?
By providence divine. Some food we had, some fresh water,
a noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo, out of his charity,
being then appointed master of this design, did give us.
From the first, Prospero's words to Miranda
are some of the tenderest in the play.
'He talks about his daughter as "dear", he tells her that she saved his life.
'He's trying to instruct her about the world she's about to enter that she has no experience in.'
And he's worried about it. She's 15, and he's worried about it.
Know thus far forth, by accident most strange,
bountiful fortune now, my dear lady, hath my enemies brought to this shore.
He is my teacher. I have very few memories before this place.
It's just the given, it's the given circumstances.
'I know that my father talks to spirits and that he runs this storm and I know he's probably'
got a purpose for these things he's doing,
but I feel that it's just a given that I understand that he's got this magic
and he's got this ability to talk to the spirits.
'Prospero and Miranda are not completely alone.
'Their fellow inhabitant is among Shakespeare's strangest characters.
'Caliban, a creature possibly inspired by the talk in Shakespeare's local tavern.
'The Globe Theatre was by the river.'
Sailors returning from distant parts would of course exaggerate
about the weird and wonderful creatures that they had seen.
But strange creatures - half man, half animal - were thought to exist,
and, indeed, drawings were made of them
and those drawings were printed.
'Caliban has always been a controversial character.
'His existence provokes uncomfortable questions.'
I want to try something. Really attack...
'The Tempest is part of the RSC's new season.
'In rehearsal, they're exploring the first time Caliban is seen with Prospero.'
OK, let's go from waking Emily up.
'Something has happened that has resulted in Prospero enslaving Caliban.'
Slave! Caliban!
Thou earth, thou...
Speak!
Caliban is a previous inhabitant of the island.
He actually was here before Prospero.
I think that's significant to their relationship.
His mother, Sycorax, was a witch
and she has died, leaving Caliban alone on the island.
'Prospero has arrived on the island, and Prospero and Caliban initially were friends, '
then a terrible event has taken place, a cataclysmic event.
Poisonous slave.
'The relationship is now full of anger.'
Come forth!
As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed with raven's feather
from unwholesome fen, drop on you both!
A south-west blow on ye and blister you all o'er.
'Each new production has to decide what Prospero feels about Caliban.'
Tonight thou shalt have cramps.
'I talked to the unusually youthful Prospero, Jonathan Slinger.'
Your Prospero, does he think of Caliban as his servant,
as his slave? Does he think of him as an animal?
I think they have been on a real journey,
their relationship has been on an incredible journey,
which is articulated beautifully actually by Caliban himself,
who talks about Prospero arriving and treating him very well,
very nicely, giving him food.
When thou cam'st first, thou strok'st me and made much of me,
would give me water with berries in't.
And then I loved thee.
'He then betrayed me horribly'
by trying to rape my daughter.
And now he is very much my slave.
I have used thee, filth as thou art,
with humane care and lodged thee in my own cell
till thou did seek to violate the honour of my child!
I don't think of Caliban as an animal. He is
a being that I have had enormous love and respect for in the past,
but no longer, and I am punishing him terribly.
'Quite where our sympathies should lie is complicated by the idea of whose island is it anyway?'
Certainly, Caliban is enslaved against his will.
And certainly, Prospero has come to an island where he himself
is not native born and is taking it over and becoming its ruler.
So the structure is a colonial structure.
'In our century, it's seems obvious to link Caliban and colonialism,
'but is that what Shakespeare had in mind?
'The play is about power, freedom and slavery,
'but that's not the same as empire.
'It would help to get a clearer idea of where Shakespeare intended his island to be.'
So this, for late 16th, early 17th century Englishman,
is what world looks like.
And what you can see is obviously... this looks quite modern.
There you can see Britain, you can see the Mediterranean very clearly here.
So even by this time, by the very early 17th century,
you have quite a comprehensive world picture.
Imagery like this would be known or would it be very specialist?
No, it would have been known.
They would have been able to situate themselves within this world.
It has to be said, doesn't it, that the bulk of the references
in the play are to this Mediterranean world?
I mean, Caliban was the son of Sycorax, the witch of Algiers,
and there isn't a suggestion in the play that we're dealing with
what came to be known as the New World?
No, because look at this, look at this map. If you look at North America and South America,
this is quite approximate. This is a sort of weird,
triangulated wedge of cheese for South America.
North America pushed far too far to the west.
Here it gets hazy, so those references to the New World
are about the fact that this new West world is something coming into shape.
Certainly for the English. OK, Columbus discovers it in 1492,
but the English have been nowhere in that process.
Only from the turn of the 17th century when they settle in Virginia,
what the English audience knows is this Mediterranean world which is what the play's describing.
'But in trying to give the play more contemporary relevance,
'productions often make the legacy of European colonialism the central theme of this 17th-century play.'
The last 20 or 30 years, there's been a post-colonialism take on the play,
to say, "This is all about colonisation,"
so everybody has therefore magnified those New World, American dimensions.
Indeed, the problem with the colonial take
is that of course Prospero becomes just another white colonialist
who has taken over somebody's country, and that isn't his story.
I mean, he's been cast adrift in a boat, and this island is his survival.
And he discovers Caliban, and Caliban is not native to that island.
Absolutely. I think that the more interesting aspect of the play is,
nobody is native to the island.
The island has never been first discovered,
there's always been somebody there before,
because before Caliban, there was Sycorax.
We know from the text that this island
has green pasture, brown firs,
trees, a marsh and yellow sands.
But is it bare? Is it bleak? Is it beautiful?
'I think Shakespeare leaves this to our imagination,
'so we can create our own magical world, and magical it must be.
'Prospero has a spirit servant, Ariel.
'Using his magic art, he released Ariel from a tree,
'in which he'd been imprisoned by Caliban's mother, a witch.
'Ariel belongs to the elements.'
There's Caliban, who represents something very close to the earth,
something visceral and physical.
Then there's Ariel, who represents all the opposite things of that,
the spirit, something sacred and something magical,
something other-worldly.
And human beings are pulled between those poles.
'The relationship between Prospero and his spirit is complex,
'as Prospero has promised him freedom, but only after Ariel has helped him fulfil his plan.'
My liberty!
Ariel, throughout the play, from the first moment we see him, really,
is saying to Prospero,
"When am I going to be free? When are you going to let me go?
"You promised my that if I sorted out this storm, you would free me."
Thou didst promise to bate me a full year.
Ariel is definitely another slave.
'Caliban's one, and Ariel's another.'
I thank thee, master.
But I suppose there is this sort of intimacy and love there
for the person who is his captor.
'There's something wonderfully mischievous and accessible about Ariel.
'He so wants to be praised'
and so overjoyed when he IS complimented.
'The Magus is about to call on Ariel for a very different part of his shipwreck plan.
'Prospero has brought his enemies ashore
'not only to settle an old score,
'but to secure a new future for his daughter.
'One of the survivors is Ferdinand, the son of the King of Naples.
'Using an enchanted song, Ariel must deliver this young man into the presence of Miranda.'
Where should this music be?
I' the air or the earth?
'It's the first young man she's ever seen.'
What is it, a spirit?
No, wench, this gallant that thou see'st was in the wreck.
Sir, it carries a brave form.
He can put Ferdinand and Miranda together, but he can't make them fall in love.
That's going to happen or it's not gonna happen.
I might call him a thing divine.
For nothing natural I ever saw so noble.
We call it love at first sight. But it's not that deep love,
it's a tickle, it's, um... it's sexual intrigue,
it's a sexual interest that has never existed, I believe, in her body.
O you wonder, if you be maid or no?
No wonder, sir, but certainly a maid. My language! Heavens!
'But then suddenly Prospero interrupts.'
A word, good sir. I fear you've done yourself some wrong. A word.
Why speaks my father so ungently?
Virgin and your affection not gone forth.
'Prospero has his reservations about Ferdinand...'
Soft, sir, one word more.
'..Since, in the past, the prince has been a bit of a playboy.'
Young Ferdinand has been round the block with young ladies various,
and Prospero is anxious
that the relationship between him and his daughter
should be not just a thing of physical attraction.
What he wants is a meeting of minds.
One word more, I charge thee that thou attend me!
Thou didst here usurp the name thou ows't not.
And has put thy self upon this island as a spy.
To win it, from me, the Lord on't. No, as I am a man. There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.
Follow me. Speak not you for him. Come!
Prospero is obviously struggling with himself, so...
At the same time he's trying to control the encounter,
he wants it to go a certain way,
but doesn't quite want it to happen just yet,
or maybe changes his mind about what he wants to happen.
And all of these things Shakespeare is dramatising.
'Prospero is worried that if the teenage girl is too easily won, Ferdinand won't value her.
'But he can come across as the archetypal competitive male.
'That dynamic changes if Prospero is played by a woman.
'In a new film, Helen Mirren plays the part.'
This gallant which thou see'st was in the wreck.
I might call him a thing divine.
For nothing natural I ever saw so noble.
'I felt that it was a very strong addition.'
The play doesn't change,
but the perception in the audience's mind changes,
watching a woman doing, saying these things.
We are both in either's powers.
But this swift business, I must uneasy make,
lest too light winning make the prize light.
It's a fantastically different reaction that this Prospero has,
'because there's no testosterone.'
When a young man comes calling for the daughter of Prospero,
there's a lot of competition going on.
Here, with Prospera, it's much more of a tigress protecting her cub.
She knows exactly what can happen
with this young man if he's not true.
Thou thinkst there is no more such shapes as he
having seen but him and Caliban.
Foolish child!
To the most of men, this is a Caliban, and they to him are angels.
My affections are then most humble.
I have no ambitions to see a goodlier man.
'It's still a parent-child relationship,
'so that is the constant, but, yes, '
it lost that slightly... I thought to me
slightly patriarchal, controlling thing that I always felt
when it's played by a man.
'Whenever you see a work by Shakespeare,
'it's natural to wonder how much of it comes from his life experience.
'But The Tempest provokes more of these speculations
'than any other of his plays.
'It's April the 23rd,
'and Shakespeare's birthday is being celebrated in Stratford-upon-Avon.
'Now he's world famous, but even during his lifetime,
'he was known in his home town as a successful playwright,
'with his own coat-of-arms, a family and a reputation to protect.
'It's not impossible that Prospero's fears were rather close to his own.'
All writers draw on their experience as they write plays.
And we know that, at the time Shakespeare is writing The Tempest,
he's a little bit worried about one of his daughters, Judith,
who is involved with a man who may not be quite reliable.
And, at some level, those paternal anxieties are part of the play.
'The man his daughter was intent on marrying
'had made another woman pregnant.'
Inevitably, things that happen in your life inform your work.
So there is that concern with actually testing a husband
to check that they are suitable, before a daughter marries them,
which, of course, is played out in The Tempest.
'We can't be sure of this, of course, but Shakespeare, the experimental dramatist,
'was certainly determined to explore bold, fundamental ideas.
'Shakespeare uses his magical island
'to investigate the truth about human nature.
'Are we bestial or benign?
'On another side of the island, his treacherous brother
'and the co-conspirators are struggling to orientate themselves.'
You have cause, so have we all...
'But amongst them is the ageing Gonzalo.
'No traitor he, but a courtier always loyal to Prospero
'and in this virgin world, he dreams of his perfect society.'
Have just our theme of woe.
All things in common nature should produce without sweat or endeavour.
Treason, felony, sword, pike, knife, gun
or need of any engine would I not have!
Anticipating Karl Marx,
he says that, in future, everything should be held in common.
There should be no usury - making of money out of lending money.
No weapons, no wars.
But nature should bring forth of it own kind, all foison,
all abundance to feed my innocent people.
'Everything should be produced by nature. Paradise.
'It's a radically egalitarian vision.'
That moment in the play where Gonzalo comes onto the stage
and says, "Well, if I were running this place, this deserted island,
"I might organise things totally differently.
"I might actually have a commonwealth
"where everyone has equal political rights.
"I might get rid of kings altogether."
Heretical thought in this time.
And one of the interesting things is that,
within 40 years of this play being written,
all of these debates will erupt in the English Civil Wars.
They will actually become real.
Wondrous heavy.
'Yet hopes of Gonzalo's utopia are quickly dashed.
'No sooner has he described it
'than Shakespeare crushingly presents the obstacles there would be in achieving it.'
As sleep overtakes the other survivors,
Prospero's usurping brother, Antonio,
tries to persuade his crony to commit murder,
to gain for both of them more wealth and more power.
Remember, you did supplant your brother, Prospero.
True. And look how well my garments sit upon me.
Much feater than before.
'Even in a new land, if you create an ideal society,
'the worser human instincts will always emerge.'
I think it's a tabula rasa, the island. It's a clean slate.
There's no connection to civilisation,
so you have to see how, nature or nurture,
how embedded is it in humanity?
'You have this court come to the island.
'They have no castles, they have nothing.'
And yet all what is nature in them,
which is the deceit, starts up again.
Their character is embedded in them.
And you watch this incredible, duplicitous nature
come out in the conspiracy.
'Despite our flawed nature,
'we humans keep longing for a mythical paradise.
'This is the Eden Project, built to cherish a natural world
'that, given the creatures we are, we're in danger of losing.
'But is this what Shakespeare was saying?'
Shakespeare was a very, very clever writer.
Remember, all the plays at the time were submitted to the censor
to be read before they could be staged.
Most of Shakespeare's contemporaries at one time or another
ended up getting into big political trouble, often ending up in prison.
However, he didn't shy away from the big, difficult political questions,
questions about the nature of good government,
questions about monarchy versus republicanism,
questions of what might you do to establish a colony or an empire.
These were hot topics at the time,
and a play like The Tempest goes straight into them.
'As the play continues,
'Shakespeare delves even deeper into the darker side of human nature.
'Caliban comes across two surviving drunken shipmates,
'a jester and a butler,
'and together, they strike a deadly deal.
'Caliban, desperate for his freedom, wants Prospero dead.
'He tells them how, in detail, they must kill the Magus.'
There, thou mayst brain her
Or with a log batter her skull
Or paunch her with a stake
Or cut her weasand with thy knife.
'If they will kill Prospero,
'then the butler will be king of the island, Miranda his concubine.'
She will become thy bed, I warrant, and bring thee forth brave brood.
Monster, I will kill this witch.
Pleasure!
'The deal is done.
'Prospero is now a dead man walking.'
♪ ..Thought is free... ♪
'So can anyone be trusted with power?
'This question underpins the play.
'It even applies to Prospero himself.
'Prospero's power is rather different.
'His magic comes from his knowledge, his book,
'an idea familiar to a 17th-century audience.'
In the early modern period, magic is a practice.
Not anyone can be a wise man, a Magus.
You have to work at it.
You have to study the books and the records,
you have to explore scientifically, by experimentation,
the different permutations of chemicals, the types of dye,
the different movements of the stars.
If it's handled in the wrong way, it can become ungodly.
And one of the keen things I think we see in the play
is that delicate balance between good and bad magic.
'This tension recurs throughout The Tempest.
'How should the power of knowledge or science be used?
'It's a timeless and universal question, of course,
'and has prompted a very different version of Shakespeare's story.'
'These magnificent scenes, in striking Eastman Color,
'stagger the imagination.'
But it is, look! That is striking Eastman Color.
'Forbidden Planet
'is film critic Mark Kermode's favourite Shakespeare adaptation.'
'Imagine yourself as one of the crew of this faster-than-light
'spaceship of the future.'
'In this sci-fi take on the play, the island is a planet in outer space.'
'When you reach the Forbidden Planet, you will meet Dr Morbius...'
'The Prospero is a scientist.'
'The doctor is sole owner of this fabulous world.'
'There is a Miranda and a Ferdinand.'
Didn't bring my bathing suit.
What's a bathing suit?
Oh-oh!
'There's a mysterious power.'
'..conceal a strange and evil force... unknown, irresistible.'
'But the essential question remains the same...
'who can be entrusted with special power?'
The idea of it is that this spaceship arrives on a planet
which is being ruled by this vaguely sinister
but generally benevolent scientist,
and somehow Morbius has tapped into this power that he didn't create...
it was put there by a previous civilisation...
he doesn't understand it
and yet, in his dream states, in his unconscious rages,
he lets loose this monstrous force.
But does he ever use it for anything benign?
I mean, Prospero can be punitive and mean-spirited,
and it looks like he is going to be vengeful,
but he can also be generous with his magic, celebratory with his magic.
Yes, he is benign. Yes, he uses it to create
this wonderful Eden-like world for his daughter to grow up in.
'But, presumably, Paradise won't last.'
'It's very cleverly played on the cusp of sinister and avuncular.'
I think that's the reason the film works,
because he is paternal he is benevolent, he is good,
but he also is marshalling a power
that enables the dark side to run rampant.
I would say the climax of the story is him
realising that what is monstrous out there in the world is actually him.
And it is, in the end, a film about him facing up
to the responsibility he has, having played with this power.
'Back on Shakespeare's island,
'the benign side of Prospero's nature seems to be winning,
'at least as far as his daughter is concerned.
'Ignoring the plot against his life,
'he's concentrating intently on her courtship.
Pray set it down and rest you.
'Disobediently, she has gone to see Ferdinand...
'secretly, she thinks, but in fact Prospero is watching.'
My father's hard at study.
Pray now, rest yourself. He's safe these three hours.
Poor worm, thou art infected.
There is just an element of bad taste about that, isn't there,
'in hiding and overhearing and spying?'
We come to realise that it's entirely protectively.
Pray, give me that...
'Love is a tricky thing, you know?'
He has to be tested.
If he says that he loves her, does he really love her?
'Prospero absolutely has to know what kind of a guy he is.'
What is your name? Miranda.
Oh, my father, I have broke your hest to say so.
'Clearly, by now, Miranda is ready to assert herself.'
If Miranda didn't have her moment of disobedience,
I would feel much less enthusiastic about her.
'In fact, she does want to hang out with Ferdinand, '
even at the cost of disobeying her father's wish.
Do you love me?
Oh, heaven!
'She has been brought up to be the obedient child, '
but in fact there is fire in her.
I am a fool to weep at what I am glad of.
Fair encounter of two most rare affections.
Prospero is starting to realise that Ferdinand does love his daughter.
'He stays and he watches them.'
I am your wife,
if you will marry me.
'And, actually, it's quite touching, in performance, to see him'
watching his only daughter fall in love with another man.
'Prospero is beginning to let go.
'He's initiated their union and tested the prince
'and now he's ready to approve their marriage.'
'The Globe actors are trying out the scene.
'Choosing to forget the would-be murderers,
'Prospero gives himself to his daughter's joyous moment.'
Then, as my gift
and thine own acquisition worthily purchased,
take my daughter.
'But he can't quite let go.
'He gives a stern warning to Ferdinand
'not to even think about pre-marital sex with Miranda.
'Ferdinand protests his innocence.'
The strongest suggestion our worser genius can,
shall never melt mine honour into lust
to take away the edge of that day's celebration.
Fairly spoke.
Sit, then, and talk with her.
She is thine own.
'Prospero creates a magical display, a musical entertainment
'calling on celestial goddesses to celebrate the betrothal.
'It's a moment of exuberant joy, but it doesn't last.
'Prospero suddenly stops his own show.'
I find the marriage ceremony rather interesting,
because it's actually... it's an aborted marriage ceremony.
He brings them together for nuptial masque,
and Prospero suddenly stops it,
before it's finished, and says, "No, that's enough.
"I don't want that any more."
What's immediately on his mind is that he knows
that Caliban has hatched a plot against him
with Stephano and Trinculo to murder him.
It's possible also that he stops it because
it's too idealistic a view of life to present to his daughter.
Life's not going to be like that. Life isn't perfect.
'But Shakespeare has another purpose.
'The vanishing vision gives Prospero his most penetrating insight.
'In one of the most poetic and, for me, consoling speeches
'Shakespeare ever wrote, Prospero addresses the young couple
'and talks about the fragility and transience of life itself.'
You do look, my son, in a moved sort, as if you were dismayed.
Be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended.
These, our actors, as I foretold you,
were all spirits
and are melted into air,
into thin air.
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
the cloud-capped towers,
the gorgeous palaces,
the solemn temples,
the great globe itself,
yea, all which it inherits shall dissolve...
'Climactically, in that speech, '
he uses the phrase "the great globe itself".
Now, partly, of course, he means the world - the globe...
that's what we refer to, the globe,
but it's the name of his theatre, the great Globe itself.
All of our shows - all of these things that we've created here...
will disappear, they won't be around any more.
In that way, I think, it's 100% certain that there is that autobiographical ingredient.
And like this insubstantial pageant faded...
leave not a rack behind.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on.
And our little life...
is rounded with a sleep.
'Everything in this life is like a series of visions.
'It's like a series of scenes on stage, but in the end,
'all we're doing is writing on the sand,
'and the next tide comes in, and our beautiful message is washed away.
'Understand life in those terms -'
we are such stuff as dreams are made on.
And our little life is rounded with a sleep.
'So, something powerful is stirring in Prospero,
'as he tries to come to terms
'with those who've wronged him
'and to decide what he should do with them.
'Losing Miranda has radically changed him.'
Whatever he wants to do to even the score,
another generation will come,
time passes, and time passing means, of course,
that all the structures of imagination and fantasy...
the cloud-capped towers - are all going to disappear.
So how do you live from one moment to the next?
That's what he's left with at that moment.
There's a sort of wonderful sense of inevitability...
I think, that's what it is...
of the onward roll of life and death, life and death,
life and death, and that we are all a part of that onward roll,
and there's nothing we can do about it.
'While he's turning over these thoughts and feelings,
'Prospero's given another emotional jolt.
'Ariel describes how he has brought the group of conspirators
'across the island, where they wait, paralysed in fear and distress.
'Now Prospero's non-human spirit talks about human compassion.'
That if you now beheld them...
your affections would become tender.
Dost thou think so, spirit?
Mine would, master... were I human.
Prospero thinks, "My God!
"If my spirit, Ariel, is so moved that he's saying
"you have to forgive, then that's what I have to..."
And everything changes.
'Prospero decides he will now make the ultimate personal sacrifice...
'he will surrender his magical powers.
'There's a special poignancy in this surrender if you think,
'as I do, that Shakespeare is, in part, writing about himself.
'Shakespeare, like Prospero, has spent years conjuring with his imagination,
'but after The Tempest, he will write no more plays.'
Ye elves of hills,
brooks, standing lakes and groves.
'Calling up his spirits for one last time,
'Prospero remembers his extraordinary accomplishments.
'Shakespeare too has summoned countless visions
'and brought the dead to life.'
Graves at my command
have waked their sleepers, oped and let 'em forth
by my so potent art.
But this rough magic...
I here abjure.
I'll drown my book.
'I think it's a devastating moment to let go of all of that.'
Also, it's a kind of growing up moment for Prospero/Prospera,
not just letting go of power,
letting go of rage, letting go of anger, letting go of revenge.
'It's kind of sad and melancholic, but it's full of understanding.'
'The connection I see between Prospero and Shakespeare
'makes this for me a particularly moving speech.
'I do think that The Tempest is a farewell work, '
but I didn't see that final departure as "I'm turning my back on you,
"I'm abandoning you." No, "I'm leaving you with everything I have
"to offer and I want it to stay with you, but I have to go.
"Farewell, goodbye, I will never see you again" moment is something
that we all understand and have a very strong emotional reaction to.
With so many very great artists, the point comes, it seems,
where they see their own work, their own utterance,
as having resolved nothing
and they empty their hands. The sense of the all-powerful,
magical figure manipulating stories suddenly saying,
"I can't do this any longer, I have to become human."
I think that is something that is bound into the really great artists' work.
'But before Prospero drowns his book, he must finally come
'face to face with his enemies,
'the moment he has dreamed of for years.'
With a great final spell,
Prospero brings all his enemies around him in a circle.
What's he going to do?
'He confronts each one of them with what they've done.'
But for you, my brace of lords, were I so minded,
I here could pluck His Highness' frown upon you
and justify you traitors.
At this time, I will tell no tales.
The devil speaks in him!
Oh, no!
For you, most wicked sir,
whom to call brother
would even infect my mouth...
I forgive thy rankest fault.
All of them...
and require my dukedom of thee,
which, perforce, I know thou must restore.
'He has forgiven, but it's been hard.'
He's not gracious at the end. He's really struggling,
he is an ageing, angry, injured man
who has lived with himself for a long time,
and he knows what he has to do and grits his teeth and he does it.
And that is, I think, one of most extraordinary things about the play,
that the bitter, savage, isolated Magus figure at the beginning
has become a recognisable human being - he has broken
his magic wand and he's joined the human race again.
'Finally, Prospero must be true to his spirit slave and give Ariel the freedom he yearns for.'
That...
That idea that we are all entitled to our freedom
is very potent in the play, and Prospero keeps his word with Ariel.
Then to the elements be free.
'I love the end, cos what he longs for is just to no longer be in a human form'
and be a spirit - to be with the wind, the elements,
to dissolve into that.
'Prospero seems to pardon his would-be murder, Caliban, too.'
It was a moment of mutual recognition, of acceptance,
a full recognition of the other.
'And so, at the end of his last play,
'Shakespeare tells us the struggle to achieve forgiveness can be won.
'Prospero has managed to forgive
'and, in doing so, he has also freed himself.
'Again, the parallels between Prospero and Shakespeare.
'In an epilogue, Prospero, no longer empowered, makes a plea of great simplicity.
'He steps forward and asks us, the audience, to set him free.'
"Now my charms are all o'erthrown.
"And what strength I have's mine own,
"which is most faint.
"As you from crimes would pardoned be,
"let your indulgence set me free."
'After writing The Tempest, Shakespeare left London for good and returned to Stratford.
'Just two years later, he died. He was only 52.
'I've worked in theatre for all of my adult life'
and I can't begin to understand how he could have worked
at such a pitch, at such a scale,
in such a short span of time.
For me, The Tempest will always be exceptional,
not just because of its wisdom and humanity,
but because, more than any of his other plays,
it leads us to the essence of the man who wrote them.
My feeling is that it's in The Tempest,
through the character of Prospero,
that we get closest to the workings
of the mind of that genius, William Shakespeare.
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