![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waiting to sail your worries away
Oct. 29th, 2013 04:44 pmAbigail Nussbaum has a cool article up on three stagings of Much Ado About Nothing: the Branagh film, the Whedon film, and the Tennant/Tate production.
Although I liked the Whedon adaptation more than she apparently did, and saw it as definitely expressing an interpretation, albeit a nihilistic and chaotic one. I was struck by the way Whedon's characters stumbled from scene to scene, how drunk and out of control they all were, how random their choices are - in contrast to the Branagh film, where you see Beatrice and Benedick warming to the thought of one another and genuinely deciding to match themselves, I saw Whedon's characters as very much the victims of their friends' tricks, tricked into sex and love and marriage and betrayal and penance and forgiveness, tricked into doing wrong and tricked into doing right.
I suppose it also doesn't help, in my case, that looking at Sean Maher's little faaaaaaace makes me go all melty and trusting, whereas I don't trust Reed Diamond as far as I can pitch him.
Although I liked the Whedon adaptation more than she apparently did, and saw it as definitely expressing an interpretation, albeit a nihilistic and chaotic one. I was struck by the way Whedon's characters stumbled from scene to scene, how drunk and out of control they all were, how random their choices are - in contrast to the Branagh film, where you see Beatrice and Benedick warming to the thought of one another and genuinely deciding to match themselves, I saw Whedon's characters as very much the victims of their friends' tricks, tricked into sex and love and marriage and betrayal and penance and forgiveness, tricked into doing wrong and tricked into doing right.
I suppose it also doesn't help, in my case, that looking at Sean Maher's little faaaaaaace makes me go all melty and trusting, whereas I don't trust Reed Diamond as far as I can pitch him.