Kiss Me Kate The Taming Of The

Kiss Me Kate, The Taming Of The Shrew And Ten Things I Hate About You Essay, Research Paper

Choose one of the various film versions of .The Taming of the Shrew., the musical .Kiss Me Kate. or the recent film .Ten Things I Hate About You., and critically evaluate the success or otherwise of this film as an appropriated text.

The 1953 film of the musical .Kiss Me Kate. is successful in many aspects as an appropriation of the Shakespearian play .The Taming of the Shrew.. These include: the transmission of .Kiss Me Kate. from the live Broadway musical to the film version; and the clear portrayal of the play .The Taming of the Shrew. onstage, and the mirrored story backstage. Other successful features are: the contribution of song lyrics which add clarity to the plot; and the fact that the score can still be enjoyed today since the mood and lyrics of each songs are varied.

Unfortunately, some aspects of the film do not contribute positively to its success. For example: the obvious fact that the film is a 1950.s piece results in the audience being slightly distracted by the abundance of post-war American values and ideas and renders it less attractive to current viewers. Another negative feature are the frequent dancing scenes which are entertaining, but in which it is not always clear why the performers are dancing, other than the fact that it is an obligatory component of the musical genre.

Before the film version, .Kiss Me Kate. was an incredibly successful live musical-performed on Broadway and around the world. It is still performed as a live musical today. Thus the smooth transmission from live performance to film in 1953 enabled the film version to retain the loyalty of the live musical.s fans whilst gaining more viewers with the distribution of the video. The greatest achievement in the adaptation is that virtually all the live musical.s songs are retained, with the addition of one song from another play, .Out of This World.. In fact, this addition proved so successful that the song was included in all subsequent productions of the live show. Hence, the film version.s success as a product confirms its success as an appropriation of .The Taming of the Shrew. which is enjoyed and studied by thousands of people.

Another great achievement of .Kiss Me Kate. is the .play-within-the-play. idea. The movie follows the story of a bunch of actors who are performing a musical version of .The Taming of the Shrew.. The cast includes: Fred Graham, who is both the director and the male lead, Petruchio; Lilli Vanessi, who plays Katherine and also happens to be Fred.s ex-wife; Lois Lane, who portrays Bianca and is Fred.s current love interest; and Bill Calhoun, who plays Lucentio and is also having a fling with Lois behind Fred.s back. While the actors are performing .The Taming of the Shrew. on stage, each character is more or less living out the play in real life, backstage. For example, backstage, Lilli Vanessi is known to be a difficult actress to work with. She argues and fights often and is seemingly never happy-these are similar traits to her character Katherine.

Backstage Fred is arrogant, cocky and egotistical, and is obviously still in love with Lilli Vanessi-similar to Petruchio. The backstage drama unfolds as Fred tries (more subtly than Petruchio) to win Lilli.s love. There are moments when they seem truly in love, such as whilst reminiscing about past musicals, and also moments when Lilli becomes enraged at Fred. Entire backstage scenes can be recognised from .The Taming of the Shrew., such as the scene when Fred advises Lilli not to eat before going onstage, to prevent indigestion. He does this under the pretext that he is looking out for her best interests, when in reality, he is attempting to show his dominance over her. This scene can be compared with one in .The Taming of the Shrew. where Petruchio deprives Katherine of food, claiming that the meat is not cooked.

Not only does their on-stage performance come backstage, but the characters utilise their backstage issues to add emphasis and meaning to their onstage lines. When Lilli discovers that flowers she received from Fred before the performance were actually meant for Lois, she becomes enraged-onstage. In Act 2, scene 1, Petruchio encounters Kate. Although she is meant to be angry, Lilli uses her own bursting anger towards Fred to enable Katherine to lose all control onstage, adding more ferocity to the rehearsed violence. She violently slaps and elbows Petruchio, all the while remaining using her Shakespearian dialogue. Fred eventually decides that he has had enough, and, to the delight of the audience, flips her over and spanks her bottom centre stage while the curtains are being drawn. The naive audience members simply see Petruchio punishing Katherine, however it is also Fred teaching Lilli a lesson for her feisty attack on him.

At the end of the film, Katherine apologises to Petruchio in her famous speech about loyalty to husbands. Backstage, Fred and Lilli are also reconciled. Another example of the play-within-the-play. Thus, this integration of two separate stories into the one play is a success, as it flows smoothly and is easy to follow and understand. This adds an extra dimension to the main play .The Taming of the Shrew. and contributes to making the film a successful appropriation.

One of the most important features of the film are the s