Shakespeare on Film: The Tempest @ Watershed
Derek Jarman’s The Tempest is being screened next month at Watershed, Bristol as part of the BFI presents Shakespeare on Film programme.
Brooding and darkly laden with symbolic imagery, Derek Jarman’s terrific, homoerotic adaptation of Shakespeare’s final play is considered by some to be the most evocative Shakespeare adaptation ever to reach the screen.
A tale of colonialism, revenge, retribution and reconciliation, it focuses on an ageing magician named Prospero (Heathcote Williams) – who is imprisoned on an island with his beautiful daughter Miranda (Toyah Willcox) and a beast called Caliban (Jack Birkett) – and his plans to seek vengeance on his brother by conjuring up a wild tempest to shipwreck his ship. This is Jarman at his most playful and original – enjoy!
Shakespeare on Film: The Tempest
Sun 19 June 12:00 | Director: Derek Jarman
Cast: Heathcote Williams, Toyah Willcox, Karl Johnson
135 mins, 1979, UK
• Further info at the Watershed website. There’s also a short article on the screening at bristol247.com. Browse further details on BFI presents Shakespeare on Film here.
