Il saggio tratta una sperimentazione di critica shakespeareana intermediale, presentata durante il convegno internazionale  Shakespeare and Rome: Identity, Otherness, Empire (Università di Roma Tre, Rome, Italy,  2005). Il saggio descrive e discute i modi in cui il video interrogava, attraverso accorgimenti tecnici quali, per esempio, alternazione, sovrapposizione e sincronia, per combinare materiale provenienti da una vasta varietà di generi multimediali, la Roma di Shakespeare cinquecento anni dopo nei nostri tempi postmoderni e postcoloniali e multiculturali

Isenberg, Nancy

Multicultural Shakespeare Translation Appropriation and Performance

English

ISENBERG, Nancy Beth

Archivio della Ricerca - Università di Roma 3

'That Shakespearian Rome! Work in Progress…' An experiment in intermedial
criticism

Biblioteka Nauki - repozytorium artykuÅÃ³w

"That Shakespearian Rome! Work in Progress..." An Experiment in Intermedial Criticism

Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego (University of Lodz Repository)

Nancy ISENBERGNancy Isenberg‘‘That Shakespearian Rome! Work in Progress...’’‘‘That Shakespearian Rome!Work in Progress...,,An Experimentin Intermedial CriticismA twelve minute video, an experiment in intermedial Shakespeare criticism,was viewed at the international conference, Shakespeare and Rome: Identity,Otherness, Empire held at the Università di Roma Tre, in the Eternal City, inMay 2005. The authors of the video, Maddalena Pennacchia and myself manipulateda variety of mediatic materials and genres to bring into focus the key wordsof the conference – identity, otherness and empire.1 Exploiting such montagetechniques as alternation, superimposition and synchrony to combine materials,we projected those terms through time and geographic space. We thus exploredshifts in their meaning since the Elizabethans appropriated Roman history andculture to use them as a mirror of their own epoch. The video aimed tointerrogate the Bard’s Rome, four hundred years later, in our own postmodern,postcolonial, multicultural times so profoundly marked by their own forms ofexpansionism and by great cultural and political crises around the globe.The first frames of the video present the Coliseum as it stands today– a traffic island, a tourist destination and ‘‘stage,,for fake centurions andgladiators. In a voice-over, one of Italy’s great pop idols, Antonella Ruggiero,sings in a voice which is both aggressive and nostalgic:1 As ‘‘authors,,we scripted and directed the video. The conference convener, Maria Del Sapio,is responsible for the original idea of producing a video for the conference. Claudio Mosticone,Head of the Multimedial Laboratory for the Dipartimento di Letterature Comparate, which hostedthe conference, joined us with his wide ranging experience and expertise, from local filming tomontage to projection.Roma, dove sei,Roma, antica città,ora vecchia realtànon ti accorgi di mee non sai che pena mi fai...2(from Vacanze Romane, on the album Registrazioni moderne, Universal, 1997). Asthe camera lens slowly pans across the Coliseum’s mass of stone, that archaeologicalmonument, logo of international cultural consumerism, returns to its original self, thepopular stadium frequented by the citizens of Rome in the days of the Caesars. Thistransition is brought about by the introduction of a video quotation from JulieTaymor’s Titus (Fox Searchlight, 1999). The images here of the Coliseum areanimated by centurions marching through archways towards the central arena. Whilethe soundtrack to this martial choreography remains unaltered, the images begin toalternate, keeping to the tempo of the march, with a sequence of photographs fromour own times: a modern day ‘‘militia,,, clasping construction tools – hammers andsaws – in the place of swords and shields. This present day ‘‘army,,, displaying thesame warrior-like muscles as its ancient counterpart, is constructing a new Romanmonument: the Globe Theatre of Villa Borghese, a replica of London’s neo-Globe,inaugurated in the autumn of 2003. A ‘‘borrowing,,from another time and anotherplace, this architectural capriccio completes in a certain sense the dialogue ofcultural reciprocity between Rome and Shakespeare initiated four centuries agowhen London theatres like the Globe hosted Shakespeare’s Ancient Rome.Accompanied by the powerful musical crescendo of the Titus sound track, ourvideo then brings the completed Globe construction triumphantly into full view, asa short clip from a CNN broadcast (from Paula Zahn Now, 13 Oct. 2003) fades in,announcing the inauguration of the Roman Elizabethan theatre to its worldwideaudience. This TV quote serves as the vehicle for a brief guided tour of the theatre.After the camera lens has panned the full round of the wooden ‘‘O,,, and is bringingthe stage itself into focus, an animation clip of a similar stage takes its place, withnone other than Shakespeare in the limelight, stroking his beard as he is about topresent a performance (from Next, dir. Barry Purves, Momentum, 2002). Witha wave of the hand, our plasticine bard conjures into view a sequence of cinemacitation that focus on characters from Shakespeare’s Rome: Mark Antony deliveringthe funeral oration; Antony gazing at Cleopatra as she glides down the Nile on herbarge; Lucius, son of Titus, and Aaron, black friend of the Goths and artificer ofhorrible deeds, in a violent encounter. All these scenes invite the viewer to reflecton the meaning of Roman identity and the relationship with the Other in a sequencethat does not follow the chronology of Shakespeare’s artistic achievements, butrather that of Roman history: from the days of the Republic in a state of political2 ‘‘Rome, where are you, Rome, ancient city, now an old reality, you don’t take any noticeof me and you don’t know how I pity you...,,(translation mine).110 Nancy Isenbergcrisis to those of the Empire in the glorious days of its expansion and thento the last stages of its decline.In the video, these themes are transferred to our times in part through theuse of cinema appropriations of Shakespeare and Ancient Rome, but moreforcefully through intermedial provocations that interfere with the scenes presented.It is a male member of a cleaning squad in the Campidoglio, Rome’s townhall, from Gente di Roma, (dir. Ettore Scola, Istituto luce/Roma cinematografica,2003) who, while dusting a statue reputed to be of Julius Caesar in the CouncilHall, recites the famous Shakespearian oration with a very marked Romanaccent. And it is he who, in alternating frames, becomes the ventriloquistprojecting his own voice onto the lips of the youthful Marlon Brando/MarcAntony (in Julius Caesar, dir. Joseph Mankiewicz, MGM, 1953).Then follows a citation from Cleopatra (dir. Joseph Mankiewicz, 20th CenturyFox, 1963) which materializes a well known scene only described in Shakespeare:Enobarbus’s description of the Egyptian queen. Richard Burton/Antony, withlust in his gaze, follows the barge that bears Elizabeth Taylor (Burton’swife)/Cleopatra down the Nile. The original sound track is replaced by theseductively languid jazz notes of a composition by Duke Ellington, Half theFun (on the album Such Sweet Thunder, Columbia, 1967), and a mellifluousmale voice-over reciting Enobarbus’s line:The barge she sat in, like a burnished throneBurned on the water. The poop was beaten gold;Purple the sails, and so perfumèd thatThe winds were lovesick with them. (2.2.201–204)Ellington composed his piece for Cleopatra, as he imagined her gliding downthe Nile alone, without her Antony. This clip is rendered more dreamlike bybeing projected in slow-motion.In the next cinema quotation, from Titus, diabolical Aaron confesses thecrimes he has fathered, in a deal with Lucius that highlights by contrast – owingto cuts we made to compress the scene – the lovingness he reveals about hisbiological paternity. Then Aaron is brutally beaten by Lucius while the soundtrackplays funky pop beats and Michael Jackson, conjuring up all his own personalhistory of transgression and conflict, sings:...You know I’m badI’m bad – you know ityou knowAnd the whole world has to answer right nowJust to tell you once again. Who’s bad?(From the song Bad, on the album Bad. Sony, 1987). The Roman worldportrayed here is in full decline, infested with malice and depravity. And this111‘‘That Shakespearian Rome! Work in Progress...’’state is reflected, as ancient beliefs would have it, in the macrocosm. TheImperial Eagle – a citation from the animated Julius Caesar (dir. Yuri Kulakov,Metrodome, 1994) – takes flight, ascending into a threatening sky where itmutates into a shrill-shrieking crow. Struck by lightening, this sinister raptorsplinters, generating dozens of its own likenesses.The lightening then, bearing all the anger of the gods, descends on Rome,but it is, once again, the Rome of today, where, through a shift to a newquote, this one from The Core (dir. Joh Amiel, Paramount, 2003), the thunderbolts strike the Coliseum, which explodes, hurling huge masses out toward tothe audience. The terrifying supernatural powers of the ancient world havemorphed into a postmodern sci-fi cataclysm. But the scattering fragments ofthe Coliseum can also be read as a metaphor for the cultural dissemination,over centuries of readings and re-readings, adaptations and appropriations, thatwas the very object of study of the conference where the video was viewed.There is an infinite variety of intermedial manipulations that can be performed.That Shakespearian Rome worked with some of them. In the end, thanks toa rewind command on the moviola, the Coliseum is recomposed and themetropolitan noises of traffic around the monument can be heard once again.Thus concluded That Shakespearian Rome! Work in Progress... and its provocativeseries of manipulations and interferences. And thus it posed, within the contextof the conference, an invitation to reflect on the very nature of critical andcultural re-appropriation and on the contaminations which are embedded in them.Works CitedBad, sung by Michael Jackson. Bad. Sony, 1987.Cleopatra, dir. Joseph Mankiewicz. 20th Century Fox, 1963.Gente di Roma, dir. Ettore Scola. Istituto luce/Roma cinematografica, 2003.Half the Fun, composed and played by Duke Ellington. Such Sweet Thunder, Columbia, 1967.Julius Caesar, dir. Joseph Mankiewicz. MGM, 1953.Julius Caesar, dir. Yuri Kulakov, Metrodome, 1994.Next, dir. Barry Purves. Momentum, 2002.Paula Zahn Now. CNN, 13 October 2003.S h a k e s p e a r e, William. Antony and Cleopatra. Ed. David Bevington. Cambridge: New CambridgeShakespeare, 2005.The Core, dir. Joh Amiel. Paramount, 2003.Titus, dir. Julie Taymor. Fox Searchlight, 1999.Vacanze Romane, sung by Antonella Ruggiero, Registrazioni moderne. Universal, 1997.112 Nancy Isenberg

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"That Shakespearian Rome! Work in Progress..." An Experiment in Intermedial Criticism

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Archivio della Ricerca - Università di Roma 3

Biblioteka Nauki - repozytorium artykuÅÃ³w

Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego (University of Lodz Repository)

"That Shakespearian Rome! Work in Progress..." An Experiment in Intermedial Criticism

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Archivio della Ricerca - Università di Roma 3

Biblioteka Nauki - repozytorium artykuÅÃ³w

Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego (University of Lodz Repository)

Biblioteka Nauki - repozytorium artykuÅÃ³w