Recently, I had the opportunity to watch The Taming of the Shrew. It was filmed in 1967 and starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and was directed by Frank Zefirelli. It was one of the funniest movies that I have watched in sometime and I encourage everyone if they get the chance to watch it. Usually, when one thinks of Shakespeare tragedy comes to mind, but not with this film it is definitely a comedy from start to finish. Richard Burton portrays Petruchio a poor man, who is looking for a rich wife, and Elizabeth Taylor portrays Katharina, a woman with a short temper and a wicked tongue, several times during the movie she is referred to as a shrew; I think of her as being spirited. I do not want to spoil the movie for anyone, but Petruchio takes a tough love approach when dealing with Katharina. One scene in particular has Katharina and Petruchio going to attend her sister Bianca's wedding, but before they can attend the wedding Petruchio has several dresses made for Katharina. Katharina loves the dresses but Petruchio pretends to hate them and destroys all of them. Katharina is heartbroken; there are several times during the movie that Katharina's spirit seems to be broken. Petruchio was not trying to destroy Katharina's spirit, but he was simply trying to get her to control her emotions instead of letting her emotions control her.
No comments:
Post a Comment