The Tempest Adaptations and Transformations

Julie Taymor’s film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ contains many alterations from the play. These differences include how Taymor’s decision to change Prospero’s gender affects the actions and reactions of other characters. Filmic advantages are used successfully to enhance how the audience perceives the gender change of the protagonist, as well as how the behaviour of the minor characters are altered because if it. The relationship between the characters is heightened by makeup, camera angles, casting, costuming and the performances of the actors themselves. Taymor uses these visual techniques of film to her advantage, even adding in an extra scene at the end of the film. The transformation of Prospero into Prospera affects the way the reader views the judgement, treatment and release of Caliban. The parent-child relationship is also altered by the gender change, as is the protagonist’s interaction of Ariel. Taymor uses the sex transformation, the difference in gender stereotypes and the relationships which ensue, to make the filmic version of ‘The Tempest,’ vastly different from the play.
William Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ explores the relationships and the effect of one person having power over another. From the beginning of the play, the reader is shown an unstable and complicated relationship existing between Prospero and Caliban. The reader gets a glimpse of their bond.
‘I must eat my dinner. This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother, with thou tak’st from me... thou strok’st me... then I lov’d thee, and show’d thee all the qualities o’th’ isle... Cursed be that I did so!’
The interaction shows the reader that the relationship between Prospero and Caliban was initially amiable, but turned malicious with the intended rape of Miranda. Julie Taymor’s film adaptation shows Helen Mirren’s performance as the character of Prospera to be no less of a dominating figure than her male counterpart, Prospero, in the play. Because of this character