# Film Version of The Tempest **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 17, 2002, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589 "2002-06-17T21:33:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BottledBlondJeanie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/0ea827/32.png) [@BottledBlondJeanie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BottledBlondJeanie)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/1 "2002-06-17T21:33:09Z")
My SO was recently down in Mexico and caught what I’ve guessed to be a strange version of The Tempest. Apparently there’s a great deal of nudity and the ship is wrecked because some chilf-god was sitting on a swing pissing on the ship… This sounds bizarre, any ideas? Thanks Much! ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/2 "2002-06-17T22:00:51Z")
This would be _Prospero’s Books_ by Peter Greenaway. Bizarre, surreal, erotic, and silly in alternating turns, but, IIRC, the brilliant John Gielgud performs all the roles (either as character or in voice-over), so worth seeing for that. Certainly one of the more unusual and provocative film adaptations of the Bard. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/3 "2002-06-17T22:01:22Z")
Sounds like “Prospero’s Book,” a weird movie by Peter Greenaway, featuring Sir John Gielgud. If it’s the one I’m thinking of, there was a lot of weird imagery at the beginning (naked kids on a swing, urinating). I saw about 3 minutes of it on cable TV years ago, then changed the channel in confusion. ---
**Author:** ![Jabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@Jabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jabba)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/4 "2002-06-17T22:01:23Z")
This sounds like it might be _Prospero’s Books_, directed by the one and only Peter Greenaway. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/5 "2002-06-17T22:03:11Z")
Oh, it also has an incredibly sumptuous production design and a terrific score by Michael Nyman (_The Piano_) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/6 "2002-06-17T22:07:53Z")
Technically, there hasn’t been any film version of \*The Tempest \*(though there are a couple of TV versions). _Prospero’s Books_ and _Forbidden Planet_ are both based on the play, however. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/7 "2002-06-17T22:22:10Z")
Well there was a film just called “Tempest” with Jason Robards, Gena Rowlands, Susan Sarandon and Molly Ringwald, made in 1982. It…sort of follows the play. It’s at least recognizable as being based on The Tempest. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/8 "2002-06-17T23:07:33Z")
> [@](#): > > Technically, there hasn’t been any film version of The Tempest (though there are a couple of TV versions). Prospero’s Books and Forbidden Planet are both based on the play, however. What’s the difference? The Greenaway, IIRC, uses nothing but Shakespeare’s words. Just because it’s not a conventional interpretation doesn’t mean it’s not a film version–or by that standard, McKellen’s _Richard III_, Almeyreda’s _Hamlet_, and Branagh’s _Much Ado_ (among others) “real” film versions, either. Btw, Derek Jarman did do a film of _The Tempest_. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/9 "2002-06-17T23:36:41Z")
Sorry, that should be Branagh’s _Love’s Labour’s_. Also omitted an _aren’t_ towards the end there. ---
**Author:** ![crazy4chaucer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5e925/32.png) [@crazy4chaucer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crazy4chaucer)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/10 "2002-06-18T12:56:40Z")
The Peter Fonda version of “The Tempest”, set in the Civil War south, is excellent! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/11 "2002-06-18T13:49:41Z")
**The Tempest** is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. I’ve seen several versions on stage and on screen. I’m not particularly fond of any screen version (although **Prospero’s Books** is interesting, and incredibly dense in its imagery). **Forbidden Planet** is one of my favorite SF films. In fact, I think it’s one of the best SF films ever made, and was incredibly influential. But I think I’m gonna pop the next person who says that it’s just The Tempest in sf drag. Go back and watch it, then read the play. The characters and their motivations are completely different Yeah, there’s adrunken sailor, but he doesn’t get The Monster drunk and plot with it to take over. Prospero lost his kingdom by being too absorbed in his magic. Morbius, as a philologist, was doing exactly what his job was. The visitors to Prospero’s island were shipwrecked there by a storm (and some help). Cruiser C57D intentionally went to Altair IV. And so on. The real proof in the pudding is that Forbidden Planet stands up by itself, with its plot, characters, and resolution playing out logically, without the sort of blatantly artificial “shoehorning” you often have to use when adapting a plot to another milieu. And that plot and its resolution are very different from that of The Tempest. FP had its inspiration in Tempest, but it’s a wholly different animal. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/12 "2002-06-18T18:57:03Z")
There was another film version of “the Tempest” from the late 1980s (I think it came out a few years before “Prospero’s Books”. It was directed by Derek Jarman, whose films usually feature trenchant ACT-UP style militant gay themes (which probably explains why the movie is so little known in the U.S.) Not the best adaptation actually, but it put some interesting spins on the characters – Miranda, who is usually portrayed as a simpering waif, appears as a rather large-figured punk rock chick with a major attitude; Caliban, normally a brutish thug appeared (IIRC) as hissy and effeminate (I guess it was a jab at the way gay people are historically portrayed – as hissy, sinister menaces.) ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/13 "2002-06-18T18:58:43Z")
There was another film version of “the Tempest” in the late 1980s (I think it came out a few years before “Prospero’s Books”. It was directed by Derek Jarman, whose films usually feature trenchant ACT-UP style militant gay themes (which probably explains why the movie is so little known in the U.S.) Not the best adaptation actually, but it put some interesting spins on the characters – Miranda, who is usually portrayed as a simpering waif, appears as a rather large-figured punk rock chick with a major attitude; Caliban, normally a brutish thug appeared (IIRC) as hissy and effeminate (I guess it was a jab at the way gay people are historically portrayed – as hissy, sinister menaces.) ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/14 "2002-06-18T19:04:43Z")
As I recall, in _Prospero’s Books_ the little peeing boy was Ariel, who was also shown as an older child and a young man – sometimes more than one in the same scene. Caliban had enormous orange testicles. ---
**Author:** ![BottledBlondJeanie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/0ea827/32.png) [@BottledBlondJeanie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BottledBlondJeanie)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-version-of-the-tempest/114589/15 "2002-06-18T19:35:44Z")
THANKS to everyone–looks like it’s Prospero’s Books–now I’m going to have to try to get my hands on a copy. Poor SO, he was so confused… 🙂