hbachrach essay, Shakespeare

The Glass of History

In the New York Times a few weeks ago, there was an article about historical accuracy in Oscar-nominated films. The Academy loves accuracy, according to the article, which goes so far as to suggest that having the accuracy of the events it depicts questioned can even lose films Oscars they seemed poised to win.

Unsurprisingly, this made me think about Shakespeare.

Shakespeare’s histories are… not known for their complete accuracy, to say the least. The compression of time, conflation of events, and addition and subtraction of characters can make trying to pick the ‘truth’ out of most of the plays, frankly, pointless. Not that this stops people from trying, and you can easily find books and articles enumerating all the things Shakespeare got wrong.

Sometimes, knowing that Shakespeare changed a detail can illuminate something very interesting about his apparent intentions in structuring the drama. Knowing, for example, that the historical Queen Margaret was dead in France well before the events of Richard III, and the famous confrontation scenes between Richard and the female characters have almost no precedent in contemporary sources suggests that Shakespeare was much more interested in the female characters than many contemporary productions seem to be.

But very often, as with the linked article’s suggestion that inaccuracy loses Oscars, the claim of historical inaccuracy seems intended to double as a value judgment. Or, on the opposite scale, “revealing” that many of his details really are accurate after all seems meant to serve as a vindication.

It’s pretty clear that Shakespeare’s audiences didn’t care. None of the Elizabethan or Jacobean history plays have the kind of scrupulous accuracy that today’s audiences seem to demand.

In 1765, Samuel Johnson published his Preface to Shakespeare, which included an entire section enumerating Shakespeare’s faults and flaws. He alludes to inaccuracy, sort of, but specifically refers only to Shakespeare’s tendency towards anachronism, which I would argue is not quite the same as nitpicking all the ways in which he changed around timelines or conflated characters. If there’s anyone you’d expect to be a stickler for facts, it’s a neoclassicist like Johnson– but that doesn’t turn out to be the case.

Writing in 1817, Romantic critic William Hazlitt does briefly note the relative historical accuracy of Shakespeare’s plays, but proclaims them uniformly correct: ‘his plays are in this respect the glass of history’. And, he notes, the places where Shakespeare has had to fictionalize are as good as, if not better than, real history.

In 1837, a printer named Charles Knight embarked on a project to produce an illustrated edition of Shakespeare. He was far from the first to do this, but he intended to distinguish his version in one important way: rather than stage-inspired illustrations, he wanted engravings of the actual settings, the real historical personages, and historically accurate clothing and architecture. In this aim, his Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakespere was, intentionally or otherwise, keeping step with emerging theatrical trends.

Around the 1830s, British actors began returning to what they saw as Shakespeare’s roots. Restoration adaptations which had superseded Shakespeare’s texts in some cases began to be restored (others would last even into the 20th century), and there was a new interest in creating productions with historically accurate, highly detailed sets and costumes. It seems only logical that, with a surging interest in representing the historical periods of Shakespeare’s plays, Shakespeare’s own inconsistent depiction of that history would become newly noticeable– and perhaps newly irritating.

These days, of course, directors are much more likely to say to hell with history and set the plays in any time or place they wish. Our obsession with historical accuracy has drifted away from Shakespeare to more naturalistic forms of media, where we seem to expect that, because the action looks realistic, it ought to fact-check against reality, too.

hbachrach review

Adaptations: Into the Woods

All in all, Into the Woods is– fine. The cast are all good to great, everything looks very pretty. But frustratingly, I think if a little more time had been spent thinking not about just putting the musical onto the screen, but adapting it to the screen, it could have been a truly great musical movie. 

What I mean by this is, Into the Woods‘ jokes, subversions, and structure are built on top of theatrical tropes, not least the device of the intermission itself. It’s a musical that’s made to be cut in half, and its structure within the acts– especially the first– relies on repetitions, reprises, montage-esque group numbers, and direct address. Rob Marshall did not grapple with how to translate any of these devices to film, beyond cut-away montages for the group numbers and changing some direct-address songs to be delivered to other characters. But more than the slight awkwardness of these choices, it’s missing the point: Into the Woods riffs not just on fairy tales, but on the way those stories are told in the theatre. I don’t know what cinematic devices could replace things like the false ending before intermission, but I’m sure such tropes exist, and utilizing them to turn Into the Woods into a movie that comments on film in the same way the play comments on theatre would have pushed it, in my opinion, over the line into becoming the movie musical that finally cracks the code. This might also have forced the filmmakers to think harder about the story they were telling, and pushed them away from some cuts and changes that ultimately left the second half, which is supposed to be the weighty one, feeling a bit bloodless. 

This hinges, in part, on a decision that I thought I would hate but instead found almost worked: actual kids playing Jack and Little Red Ridinghood. After Little Red’s number, I was firmly in the “no” camp– the song lost all of its hesitant glances towards impending adulthood, and the sexual elements just felt like an unfortunate implication. But after both her and Jack (who I felt straddled the becoming-an-adult line better than Red) delivered their songs to the Baker, I began to be intrigued by the idea of the Baker becoming a sort of semi-unwilling receptacle for children’s stories, and hoped it would maybe replace stepping into his father/narrator’s shoes as a reason for becoming a storyteller himself at the end. It also made me look anew at the progression of the lessons learned, seeing more clearly that in the first half, the children (and to a great extent, the Baker and his Wife, and the Witch as well, are still like children) come of age and learn their expected lessons. And then in the second half, the adults realize that the lessons don’t stop now that you’re grown. Unfortunately, that’s not quite what happened. 

Yes, they don’t kill Rapunzel. And it doesn’t work. The Witch learning that you have to let your children go is easy and boring; the Witch finally being proven right that the world is dangerous, but finding only loss in the victory is complicated and interesting and much sadder. Losing the reprise of “Agony” also doesn’t work, and not just because it clearly would have been amazing– but because you lose not only the comedy, but the weight behind the Prince’s later confession that he thought marriage would mean an end to longing. And finally, while losing “No More” almost works, it’s just a huge shame, and makes the Baker’s decision to return feel far too quick and easy. All of these choices combined to make the problems of the second half feel much simpler and shallower than those of the first– which is, of course, the opposite of how it ought to feel. 

There’s a lot of good too, mostly in the performances– which might be a first in 21st century movie musicals. I was completely enamored with James Cordon and Emily Blunt’s Baker and Wife, and I thought the decision to have Cordon narrate was the best thing you can do if you can’t have the narrator visible. They had fantastic chemistry and the exactly right sense of partnership. I only wish that Lapine hadn’t felt the apparent need to water down their prickliness from his original script: they never really fight here, never snap or get angry, and there’s something lost (particularly in “Moments in the Woods”) when their fantastic teamwork isn’t paired with reminders that their marriage is also difficult, and they don’t always get along. But Emily Blunt escapes Joanna Gleason’s long shadow, and James Cordon made me badly wish I could have seen his rendition of “No More.” 

 Anna Kendrick is utterly charming, though Cinderella probably suffered most from the oddly quick and shallow feel of what would be act two. Aside from my total shock that Chris Pine can sing, there’s nothing to say about “Agony.” You just have to see it.

And the film itself is unquestionably worth seeing. But I suspect those who are encountering Into the Woods for the first time on screen will need to look to the stage to understand what has made it an enduring classic of musical theatre.