Retrospective: Prospero's Books (Patreon)

Perhaps it's unsurprising that arthouse filmmakers like The Tempest so much. The play is lyrical and loose — weirdos with cameras were going to have fun with it. But strikingly, Prospero's Books starts similarly to Jarman's Tempest, intercutting between Prospero and images of water (in this case, a slow torturous drip). As much as Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway want to be weird with The Tempest, they're bound to the Bard's plans.

The two films differ in their treatment of Prospero. John Gielgud's portrayal of the character — one of the greatest in cinema — emphasizes Prospero's role as an authorial self-insert. Shakespeare is Prospero, but he exorcises his magic and books before becoming the Shakespeare who writes The Tempest. All the world's a stage, but the world is purely this man's mind. Every character is a figment of his imagine — Miranda and Caliban and Ariel and Sebastian are merely projections of his ego. Prospero's island is merely a nightmare of his own making. Perhaps this isn't a big departure from Jarman, despite the weird arthouse antics. Maybe they're two sides of the same coin — imperfect but gorgeous films.