Mothers, Motherhood and the Feminine in Fiennes’s Coriolanus
2023; Routledge; Volume: 20; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/17450918.2023.2189996
ISSN1745-0926
Autores Tópico(s)Literature: history, themes, analysis
ResumoABSTRACTThe representation of motherhood and the feminine in Fiennes's Coriolanus has until recently been unduly overlooked. The present investigation provides an analysis of key aspects and crucial scenes of the film, in which the Shakespearean issues of femininity and motherhood are represented, reinforced, metaphorised and/or questioned. This paper argues that the significance of the female dimension is expanded in the cinematic version of the play and recoded in terms manageable and relevant to a new-millennium audience. This amplification of the feminine, and of motherhood in particular, partly redresses the gender balance in the film and figuratively represents what Coriolanus tries to escape but cannot avoid in his blind quest for impenetrable, self-sufficient masculinity, which is revealed as a destructive myth nurtured by the destructive mother culture of contemporary society.KEYWORDS: Fiennes's Coriolanuswomenmothers Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 See Ormsby, 'Performance History'. In 2000, at the Almeida, Fiennes played the title roles in a double bill of Richard II and Coriolanus. On Fiennes's wish to reconsider Coriolanus see his interview by Julian Curry (Fiennes, Ralph Fiennes on Coriolanus).2 See Baker, 'Ancient Volscian Border'; Flaherty, 'Filming Shakespeare's Rome'; Friedman, 'The Hurt Roman'; Garrison, 'Queer Desire and Self-Erasure'; Hatchuel and Vienne-Guerrin, 'The Roman Plays'; Hindle, Shakespeare on Film, 75–9; Ormsby, Coriolanus (Shakespeare in Performance); Pittman, 'Heroes, Villains, and Balkans'; Semple '"Make you a sword of me"'; Smith, 'The Roman Plays on Film'. A different, interesting perspective is provided by O'Malley, 'Shakespeare Adaptation', which analyses the use of modern visual media in the film, while also touching upon feminist issues. Sokolova, 'An Anatomy of Collapse' and Sokolova, 'A Very Modern Tragedy' include insightful points on the experiences of women in war.3 Holderness, 'State of the Art', 82.4 See Adelman, 'Anger's my Meat' and Suffocating Mothers, 130–64.5 See Adelman, 'Shakespeare's Romulus and Remus'.6 Kahn, Roman Shakespeare, 144–59.7 Starks-Estes, Violence, Trauma and Virtus, 148–61.8 See Compagnoni, 'Blending Motherhoods'.9 Rogener, 'Womb Rhetoric', 127.10 Kahn, Roman Shakespeare, 147.11 Kidnie, Shakespeare and the Problem, 2.12 Sanders, Adaptation and Appropriation, 20.13 See Dolan, The Feminist Spectator, 193–209.14 Cartmell, Interpreting Shakespeare on Screen, 25.15 Bernice Kliman in ibid.16 Genette, Palimpsests, 304.17 The screenplay uses 30% of the Shakespearean text, from which it borrows its language entirely, even in invented scenes. See Pittman, 'Heroes, Villains, and Balkans', 238.18 Crowl, Coriolanus, 146.19 Ormsby, Coriolanus (Shakespeare in Performance), 222.20 Crowl, Coriolanus, 146. Anne Fabricius ('The "vivid sociolinguistic profiling"') shows responses to speech can be affected by a speaker's gender. She posits that male RP speech 'evokes the "superior" male public school voice', which is not necessarily evoked by female RP speech (120, emphasis mine).21 Massai, Shakespeare's Accents, 69. The frequent 'vocal cues' in Coriolanus suggest that Shakespeare too was aware of the performative power of vocality (see Ripley, Coriolanus on Stage, 46–8).22 Ormsby, Coriolanus (Shakespeare in Performance), 222.23 See, for example, Svartvik and Leech, English. One Tongue, Many Voices.24 Massai, Shakespeare's Accents, 1.25 Also at Shakespeare's time the topicality of the story of Coriolanus was partly provided by the costumes of the actors: 'male patricians probably wore some form of conventional costume à la romaine, [… but ] plebeians no doubt sported Jacobean working-class attire, while female characters, according to custom, wore contemporary fashions' (Ripley, Coriolanus on Stage, 35).26 Sanders, Adaptation and Appropriation, 55.27 Aston, Restaging Feminisms, 5.28 'This fine home of aristocratic privilege seems a world away from the urban blight of Rome' (Logan, Coriolanus: Screenplay, 12).29 Ibid., 17. The images could remind spectators of the controversial wars in Afghanistan and Iran, as well as other wars throughout the world. Most critics mentioned the Balkans war, considering the shooting location and the presence in the film of UK TV anchor Jon Snow, playing himself, who is famously associated with war reports on the British screen in the 1990s. Even a posteriori references can be perceived. At the time of writing, that is about twelve years after the film was released, global attention is drawn to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, and the film seems to comment on this issue too, albeit unintentionally. The fact that Fiennes had Putin in mind when working on the role of Coriolanus is striking in this respect.30 See Aebischer, 'Shakespearean Heritage'.31 Ormsby, Coriolanus (Shakespeare in Performance), 222.32 Holland, 'Introduction', 134.33 Ormsby, Coriolanus (Shakespeare in Performance), 224.34 Ibid.35 Friedman, 'The Hurt Roman', 87.36 Sanders, Adaptation and Appropriation, 21.37 Pittman, 'Heroes, Villains, and Balkans', 215.38 Ibid., 216.39 Dolan, The Feminist Spectator, 20.40 Friedman, 'The Hurt Roman', 92.41 The notion of celebrity intertextuality used in this paper is borrowed from Pittman (ibid., 219), who builds on the idea Barbara Hodgdon develops in 'Spectacular Bodies'.42 Production Notes, 10.43 Thompson, 'Series Editor's Preface', xv.44 On the implications of this aspect for Fiennes's film see Pennacchia Punzi, Shakespeare intermediale, 187–8.45 Kahn, Roman Shakespeare, 155.46 Kahn, Roman Shakespeare, 145.47 She wears a dress uniform at the Senate. See Holland, 'Introduction', 136. She also has all the 'roles impressed on soldier's wives and mothers' (Sokolova, 'An Anatomy of Collapse', 357). According to Sokolova, this has the effect of 'reducing Virgilia', who does not share the same military ethos, 'to a tool of procreation' (ibid.).48 Holland in Shakespeare, Coriolanus, 25.1 explanatory note.49 Logan, Coriolanus: Screenplay, 14.50 Production Notes, 15.51 Sokolova, 'An Anatomy of Collapse', 355.52 See Adelman, Suffocating Mothers.53 Logan, Coriolanus: Screenplay, 133.54 Logan, Coriolanus: Screenplay, 34.55 O'Malley, 'Shakespeare Adaptation', 293.56 Logan, Coriolanus: Screenplay, 12.57 The stage direction in the screenplay, disregarded by the director, also focuses on 'a beautiful butterfly' that catches 'the light perfectly, almost iridescent' (Logan, Coriolanus: Screenplay, 12). This juxtaposition resonates with Valeria's anecdote in Shakespeare's Coriolanus, about how young Martius tormented and ultimately mangled a 'gilded butterfly' (Shakespeare, Coriolanus, 1.3.62-3). Volumnia readily and proudly interprets this as a sign of her grandchild's, innate warlike disposition, inherited from his father: 'one on's father's moods' (ibid., 1.3.68), she holds forth. Virgilia, instead, downplays what happened as the behaviour of a pert child.58 Aebischer, 'Shakespeare, Sex, and Violence', 122.59 Logan, Coriolanus: Screenplay, 13.60 Ibid.61 Shakespeare, Coriolanus, 2.1.170.62 Holland in Shakespeare, Coriolanus, 2.1.170, 170 explanatory note.63 O'Malley, 'Shakespeare Adaptation', 293.64 Ibid.65 Ibid., 280.66 Logan, Coriolanus: Screenplay, 1.67 Logan, Coriolanus: Screenplay, 2.68 Kahn, Roman Shakespeare, 55.69 Ibid.70 Cartmell, Interpreting Shakespeare on Screen, 68.71 Osborne, A Place, 21. See Holland, 'Unwinding Coriolanus', 31.72 Kahn, Roman Shakespeare, 49.73 Logan, Coriolanus: Screenplay, 4. See Shakespeare Coriolanus, 1.1.35–6.74 Rogener, 'Womb Rhetoric', 127–8.75 Pugliatti, Shakespeare and the Just War, 136.76 Shakespeare, Coriolanus, 3.2.11477 Lehnhof, 'Acting, Integrity, and Gender', 354.78 Ormsby, Coriolanus (Shakespeare in Performance), 234.79 Ibid.80 Flaherty, 'Filming Shakespeare's Rome', 236.81 On the importance of voices in Coriolanus see, among others, Lehnhof, 'Bodies and Voices'.82 Aebischer, 'Shakespeare, Sex, and Violence', 112.83 Logan, Coriolanus: Screenplay, 97.84 Ormsby, Coriolanus (Shakespeare in Performance), 241.85 Shakespeare, Coriolanus, 5.6.155.86 Starks-Estes, Violence, Trauma and Virtus, 159.87 Kahn, Roman Shakespeare, 157.88 Shakespeare, Coriolanus, 1.1.64–5.89 Logan, Coriolanus: Screenplay, 104.
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