Programme Note: Coriolanus
Please note that this article contains spoilers.
As a protagonist of, arguably, lesser literacy potency and repute than many of his Shakespearean counterparts, Coriolanus may at first seem an unusual choice of character for an actor of Ralph Fiennes’ gravitas. But his portrayal of this elementally complex individual is so thunderous, bent with shrill rage and at times unearthly contempt, that the choice soon seems a natural one. The image of his camouflaged garb, with manic eyes shining bright through his blood-stained face and shaven head as he emerges from battle, will be a difficult one to forget; often he looks more like a common thug, rather than the Roman conqueror he will later become.
It soon becomes clearer still why Fiennes chooses to bring this lesser-known tragedy to the screen for his directorial debut: the Bard’s most overtly political play, Fiennes has harvested its contemporary relevance, creating a timeless study of modern democracy, warfare and class division. In the opening sequence, Caius Martius, not yet the ruler Coriolanus, stamps out to meet the disillusioned Roman proletariat inside the crumbling, graffiti-ed walls of the city, although its pointedly indistinguishable appearance bears no resemblance to Rome itself. The crowd carries protest placards and films proceedings on mobile phones. They’re hungry and relentless but Martius knows no pity. He descends on the city like a fog, and it’s this dogged ruthlessness that lays the foundations of his power, and then later his inevitable downfall.
Soon after, those same walls witness a bloody battle with Rome’s rivals the Volscians, Martius the leading Roman soldier amidst the crazed horde. Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, who shot The Hurt Locker, brings a gritty, viscerally engaging density to the close quarter, shaky battle scenes, raising the war movie in its own right to a level of art beyond purely a Shakespearean adaptation. As events play out on CNN, reminiscent of Baz Lurman’s Romeo & Juliet (1996) yet swiftly outstripping it, the countless contemporary unrests that have pervaded our TV sets are brought to mind – Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya – and are imbued with a comic but sage irony by the indomitable Jon Snow’s narration. While the language remains Shakespeare’s, the rule of the mob, the political hypocrisies and the grinding of war’s relentless engine transcend any time or place.
That’s not to say that the language is not a key element, how couldn’t it be? The actors keep their own accents, even Gerard Butler, as Tullus Aufidius, leader of the Volscian army: the spitting Scots, so often prey to ridicule, here helps to make the prose accessible, highlighting the transient nature of the language as well as the action. Perhaps surprisingly, the film is little over two hours; the script used sparingly but effectively – with this comes the virile punch in the stomach that Fiennes was doubtless aiming for, his anti-war message abundantly clear.
Martius’ ruthlessness has vast foundations, entrenched in an unmoving, patriarchal family history. As the battle with the Volscians rages, Martius’ mother Volumnia (Vanessa Redgrave) enthuses over the honour of her son’s imminent war wounds to his uneasy wife Virgilia (Jessica Chastain): ‘more becomes a man than gilt his trophy.’ When Martius returns to Rome victorious, despite failing to kill his nemesis Aufidius, he is imprudently persuaded to run for office as consul, and given the title Coriolanus. But he is unsurprisingly ill equipped with the virtues to play a politician of the people. The two scheming tribunes, Brutus (James Nesbitt) and Sicinius (Paul Jesson) are the least of the warrior’s problems; it’s his inability to relate that is his undoing. He bears his physical triumphs as Volumnia predicts, but she has gone too far, creating a machine programmed to fight, a hopeless war addict to whom allegiance means little. Here is a character full of contradictions: he begins by protecting the Roman citizens he is so unlike and despises – like ‘dissentious rogues’ and ‘scabs’ – while ardently praying to kill Aufidius, who is most his equal. Honed to act on impulse, the strings of his mother’s bow are bound to snap; when inevitably shunned by the Roman people he seeks refuge and revenge in the Volscian city. Now Martius once again, the bearded nomad, outcast from Rome, would appear to have become more human. But it’s not long before his saviours imitate and abuse his innate brutality for their own ends, ritualistically shaving their heads and donning matching tattoos to unleash their wrath on Rome under his command.
Despite her formidable power, Volumnia can save only Rome but not her son. The pivotal scene in which she walks defiantly into the enemy’s headquarters, the banished Consul’s wife and young ‘heir’ in tow, and reduces the great warrior grovelling to his knees, is symptomatic of her standing in Rome’s ruling class, quashing notions that war need only be a ruthless game of men. She returns him to Rome as ruler once more but Coriolanus’ fate is sealed and his epitaph lingers over the closing shot of his corpse: ‘every gash was an enemy’s grave.’
Rachael Loughlan
Film writer
January 2012
Add a comment