ROMAN RUIN

Some of Shakespeare’s plays seem awkward when performed in modern dress, and some of them seem perfectly attired. The Roman tragedy Coriolanus is of the latter sort. I saw it in modern dress in Washington, D.C. more than twenty years ago, with, of all people, a game young Bradley Whitford in the title role, and despite this miscasting it worked.

It works again in a gripping new movie version, opening this weekend in the Valley, directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes. He retells the story in 21st-Century clothes and settings (much of it was filmed in Serbia and Montenegro), with Shakespeare’s text boiled down to its bones by screenwriter John Logan.

Although T.S. Eliot thought it was superior to Hamlet, Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare’s most brilliant but least-beloved works. It’s the story of a General in the early Roman Republic, Caius Martius, later given the title cognomen for his victory over the Volscians at the town of Corioli, and of how, for all his martial valor, he is ultimately destroyed by his open contempt for the uppity Plebeians—with a little unwitting help from his psychotically militant mother.

For his successes in war, Martius (Fiennes) is nominated for consul, but he can’t get past a formality he finds demeaning—a requisite custom of presenting himself to the common people and displaying his scars won in Rome’s service. An unapologetic Patrician snob, he loathes the commoners, if he thinks about them at all, and is indifferent to their opinion of him.

Cajoled by his mother Volumnia (Vanessa Redgrave) and the avuncular consul Menenius (Brian Cox) into the ritual scar-baring, he endures it with misery, only to have the Tribunes stir up an insurrection by convincing the Plebes that he was insincere. They aren’t wrong, either—confronted with this horde, he spews venom at them, and ends up banished for his trouble.

Now homeless, Martius seeks out his mortal enemy—who’s also his unmistakable and requited man-crush—the Volscian leader Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler), and spitefully offers to help him invade Rome. Aufidius gleefully agrees, and the stage is set for a final, catastrophic clash between native loyalty and lust for revenge.

Fiennes and Logan find very clever modern contexts for the verse, and Fiennes’ tense staging of the battle scenes could please any fan of Green Zone or The Hurt Locker. He also captures a wonderful performance from Cox, and one of Redgrave’s best turns in a long time.

Gerard Butler comes off well, too. His Aufidius, thick-bearded, friendly, slyly sexy, makes a startling contrast to Martius.

On top of all this, Fiennes also gives one of his own best screen performances. He’s a strong, commanding actor, and he had a certain sad charm in Quiz Show, but overall, likability isn’t his specialty. That’s not a problem here. He doesn’t need a common touch for his Martius, a portrait of a deeply unhappy man who can only make sense of life in the midst of chaotic violence, to be moving.

Unlikable though the title character is, maybe part of the reason that Coriolanus can be so alienating for modern audiences is that the Ayn-Rand-ian slight regard of Martius for the unwashed herd has its seductive side. From this and many other works, there can be little doubt that Shakespeare shared at least some of his protagonist’s disgust for the fickle and dangerous mob, though not to the same pathological degree, and you may find yourself guiltily stirred up by the sneering invective directed at them (partly because Shakespeare, unlike Ayn Rand, could write).

And finally, in this Primary season you may reflect that, compared to the shameless attempts to dupe us into serving the interests of the rich, the open disdain of Martius for the poor might be downright refreshing.