Editor's Choice
What are some differences between the Twelfth Night film and text?
Quick answer:
The 1996 Trevor Nunn film adaptation of Twelfth Night departs from the text by setting the story in the 19th century and introducing political tension between Illyria and Viola's homeland. It downplays the homoerotic elements present in Shakespeare's play. In contrast, the 1988 Kenneth Branagh version emphasizes the play's melancholy by setting it in winter and altering scene order to focus on Viola's loneliness. Both films highlight different thematic elements of the original text.
Since the other answers have focused on the 1996 Trevor Nunn adaptation, this response will cover the 1988 Kenneth Branagh version (directed by Paul Kafno but based on Branagh's staging of the play). It makes for an interesting comparison with the Nunn version since its aesthetics and tone are absolutely the opposite. While the Nunn movie goes for broad comedy and slapstick, the Branagh version is more pensive and moody.
While the Nunn movie takes place in the summertime, the Branagh movie takes place in the middle of a snow-covered winter landscape—explicitly during the Christmas season. However, there is little festive cheer to be found. The gloomier winter setting reflects how the Branagh movie chooses to play up the melancholy elements of the text. Rather than focusing on the farcical elements, Branagh emphasizes the longing of Viola and her loneliness in a strange land.
Branagh also switches the first two...
Unlock
This Answer NowStart your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
scenes of the play, presenting act 1, scene 2, before act 1, scene 1, so that the audience is introduced to theprotagonist Viola before they see anyone else.
Feste no longer acts as an equal cohort to Maria and Toby when they play their prank on Malvolio, as he is asleep when they are plotting initially. He seems to genuinely believe Malvolio to be mad until all is revealed at the end. Even his characterization is gentler, sadder, and more humane than he is sometimes played as being in other versions.
If we are using the Trevor Nunn film, then some of the differences are immediate: Shakespeare naturally did not set his play in the nineteenth century, and Viola and Sebastian are not portrayed as a shipboard comedy act in the play. That does not mean that Nunn is incorrect in following the accepted stage tradition of setting Shakespeare's works in other eras; in fact, many of the most successful modern interpretations of his plays use the text to illuminate what is timeless about them.
However, one other significant difference from play to film is that Nunn chose not to elucidate the homoerotic elements in Twelfth Night. The most obvious is Antonio's more-than-friendly feeling for Sebastian, but Shakespeare also "plays" with sexual attraction when Olivia is attracted to Viola as Cesario, clearly a youth that even Orsino (not the most observant of men himself) recognizes as looking just like a girl. Then, at the play's end, there is Orsino's awfully quick acceptance of Cesario as a girl, now not only an acceptable but openly desirable mate.
Since many, if not most, modern Shakespeare scholars accept the idea that Shakespeare himself was bisexual, these elements are some of the more intriguing, and it is interesting that Nunn decided to downplay rather than to emphasize them.
References
For the purposes of this question I will be refering to the film version of this play that came out in 1996 and was directed by Trevor Nunn, starring Toby Maguire and Helena Bonham Carter. This is an excellent film version of this play and I have used it myself when teaching this text.
The first thing to state is that every single film version or performance of a play is just one "reading" or "vision" of what that play looks like. The job of a director is to take the text on the page and flesh it out; add colour to it and life and turn it into something that is living and breathing. This necessarily involves a number of decisions that make each performance or film version of the play very different from every other.
In the film version, therefore, what is very interesting is that Nunn chooses to create a situation of political tension between Illyria and where Viola and Sebastian come from. There is some danger as Viola and the Captain rush out of the sea and hide themselves, and Orsino's troops look for them. Another key aspect of the play is the way that Viola (disguised as Cesario) is always viewed in very intimate places with Orsino. This adds to the humour, as in one scene Orsino is naked in the bath and Cesario is called to sit next to him. Viola of course is therefore placed in a very difficult position as she is able to see naked the man she loves whilst also having to pretend to be advising him about how to pursue Olivia. Such touches really serve to elucidate the humour in the text and create a memorable film.
Therefore I would take issue with your question. In a sense, there are no "differences" between the text and the film version. Rather, the film version contains one man's interpretation of the text that allows us to see the original genius of Shakespeare more clearly.