The Tempest, written by William Shakespeare, is an amazing romance story. From the sight of first love, to the plot of assassination. Shakespeare’s The Tempest takes fantasy and magic to a whole new level. Tempest, produced and filmed by Paul Mazursky, is the remake of Shakespeare’s Tempest. One can see many similarities between these works, but there are also differences. One main difference is that the film doesn’t start out like the play does.
The drama in both works is very different. In the movie the drama is more about Philip (Prospero) and his wife. It all starts when Philip has a mid- life crisis and decides to quit his job. In his new-found discovery of himself, he finds out that his beloved wife is having an affair with his former boss. After their decision to split up, he takes with him his new found girlfriend and his daughter to live in peace and sanity on an island. Even when he tries to get away from his wife to this deserted island, she returns with her new boyfriend in his presence. As the movie goes on Philip acts as if he is Prospero, conjuring up a storm to hit the boat. Seeing that the storm is getting out of control, he realizes that he must jump in to save them. With all the hate between him and his ex wife, they seem to rekindle the memories and get back together, leaving his girlfriend and her husband to hook up.
In the play, the drama is very different; it has many different plots and schemes. The drama first starts out when Prospero conjures up a storm to cause what is meant to appear as a ship wreck. On this boat is his brother Antonio. Antonio, who seized Prospero’s title and property, had Prospero and his daughter Miranda exiled to the island. Another scheme that Prospero has going on is the love connection between his daughter Miranda and the king’s son Ferdinand. Prospero sets this up with the help of his spirit friend Ariel. Ariel, who was once seized by the witch Sycorax, is now the assistant of Prospero. In the entire play, he assists Prospero with the retribution against his enemies. There’s also two assassination plots in play. Trinculo, Stefano, and Caliban aim to kill Propsero and lord it over the island, while Antonio and Sebastian all plot to kill the king in hopes of gaining power back in their land. As you can see, the drama in both the works is somewhat similar but very different.
None of these plots are given much attention; instead, the play is about human nature and the division between happiness and tragedy. Although the play ends with the promise of a wedding, it could have easily ended up in a tragedy. With the two assassination plots, the play could have ended up in a bloody mass like Shakespeare’s other works.
Mazursky’s tale of The Tempest is very compelling to his audience just because it tells of a modern story with an American family. The lies, deceit and betrayal all are qualities of an American home with a little twist of William Shakespeare. He shows his American audience that even though you have crisis in your life you should always work out the problem and not think of yourself so much as a God but an improving individual.
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