Page 8 - Fujifilm Exposure_38 As You Like It_ok

It was during a trip to the Far East in 1990 that Kenneth Branagh first had the idea of setting As You Like It in Japan. He recalls: “I sat in a rock gar- den at a temple in Kyoto for two hours and was surprised at
the extraordinary medita- tive calm that descended on me. It seems to me that one of the central themes in this play is the idea of the effect that nature can have upon us, and by relocating the Forest of Arden to Japan, it would be possible to get audiences to experience the story in a new, differ- ent and exotic way.
“As I looked round
this garden at the way the
gravel beds are raked to
suggest rivers and seas to
give this marvellous meditative effects, I recognised the kind of calm- ing, tranquil mood that I have always wanted to feel from the Forest of Arden when I see the play.
“It is very different from the urban, rushing world of the court, and I really felt that strong contrast was available in some impression of Japan.” Branagh was also keen to move away from what he describes as “the sort of thigh-slapping version of Olde Englande” that many theatre pro- ductions resort to.
“ People tend to feel that because the Forest of Arden is named in the play, it must be the place in Warwickshire. But Warwickshire isn’t mentioned and no other place names are mentioned. So you could argue that the Forest of Arden is a mythical place, a state of mind.”
So, for his fifth Shakespearean film adaptation, following Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet and an all-singing-and-dancing version of Love’s Labour’s Lost - re-imagined as a pastiche of 1930s musical comedy - Branagh decided to set his As You Like
“It had some kind of historical precedent and meant that we could introduce both European and Japanese characters,” adds Branagh
In short, the action in Japan offered the filmmakers a great oppor- tunity to borrow from Japanese cul-
ture and to celebrate it – in terms of landscape, gar- dens, costumes, dance and martial life.
With most of the film- ing taking place at Shepperton studios, the nearest they actually got to the real Japan were a few days of location shoot- ing in the magnificent West Sussex gardens of Wakehurst Place renowned for the variety of trees – including Japanese maples – and shrubs grown for their
tinted foliage and berries.
“It was,” Branagh notes, “a terrific
place where we were able to shoot verdant stuff – plants, flowers and par- ticularly moss – which was very unusual and unEnglish. The idea was to try and promote to the audience this sense they might actually want to be there, and respond to the medita- tive qualities of it all.” To revel in, he might have suggested, a Forest Of Arden state-of-mind.
For the production, Branagh was flanked by many of his regular collabo- rators, including cinematographer Roger Lanser ACS, production design- er Tim Harvey, editor Neil Farrell and composer (also actor) Patrick Doyle.
Of Lanser, with whom he’s worked on and off for more than 20 years, Branagh says, “I have a great rapport and he has done a wonderful job on it.
cover story
WHERE THERE’S WILL,
THERE’S A WAY
Why Kenneth Branagh decided to relocate his
new film version of Shakespeare’s As You Like It in 19th Century Japan
It in Japan during the second half of the 19th century.
The country was trying to become an industrial nation and, as a result, opened itself up to the West for about 50 years.
As he explains: “In Europe, the idea of Empire was still in full flow and European adventurers were all over the world, often setting up their own little fiefdoms. In Japan they often lived in little enclaves around what they called ‘treaty ports’, basically the areas around docks where much of the trading of silk, rice etc was going on.”
This historical phenomenon gave Branagh the idea of setting the play among a group of Europeans who form a hybrid, commercial version of court life where they are influenced by local culture but retain their European nature.
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