Much Ado About Nothing

As a fan of Joss Whedon’s work, watching his adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing was a lot of fun. Shakespeare may seem like a strange choice for Whedon, who is most famous for directing action and sci-fi movies like The Avengers and Serenity, and creating similarly themed television series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dollhouse. However, knowing his penchant for strong characters and witty dialogue, Much Ado About Nothing seems like a natural choice.

The characters and dialogue are the very things that Whedon emphasizes in his film, and in doing so, remains faithful to Shakespeare’s source text, despite its updated setting. 

One thing that separates Joss Whedon’s adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing from other modernizations of Shakespeare is that the original language is kept. It is not clear why; Whedon is a talented enough writer that an adaptation of the dialogue could have been quite good. However, keeping the original dialogue in combination with an updated setting served to highlight an important aspect of the play: its universality.

By transposing the setting to a newsroom, the BBC Shakespeare Retold version also suggests the universality of Shakespeares play. However, it does not express it quite as well as Whedon’s film, in which the setting is much less explicit; for all we know, it could be happening anywhere. In the film, as in the play, the story is minimal (victorious men return from a war) and the setting inconsequential (Messina—but it has no effect on the plot).  What war, to be specific? Does it matter?

The focus is obviously on the people. The plot would seem ludicrous without characters as gullible as Claudio, as sharped-tongued as Beatrice, and as fickle as Benedick. The plot really only works because of such characters; they are also all the plot needs to work. Whedon’s choice to film in black and white effectively neutralizes the setting, shifting our focus to the words and actions of the characters. This is in notable contrast to the Kenneth Branagh version; I remember those big, green hedges more than the words said in the garden scene.

Note how this background--which is relatively busy--doesn't distract from the performers nearly as much as it would in color.

Though the setting in Whedon’s film appears to be modern day and not Shakespeare’s, the change in setting emphasizes the universal aspect of the play. Even the references to modern technology are brilliantly woven into the plot—like using the iPod in the garden scene and the video of Don Jon’s arrest—in places where they seem to belong, rather than awkwardly tacked on. Indeed, one could argue that the setting, in regards to cultural time period, at least, is not really updated. The Shakespeare Retold version shows that, in a truly modern-day rendition of the tale, Hero would not be immediately returning to the altar, and certainly not with Claudio. Since Whedon’s film keeps the plays original ending, it is hard to say it takes place in the contemporary day and age; instead, it seems to be ignoring day and age all together.

In the 1993 film, shooting on location in Italy added a visual splendor characteristic of period pieces. The 2012 film, in contrast, is lacking any period at all. 

Ultimately the film reveals that what matters is what happens between the people involved, not where or when it happens. Shakespeare understood that. So did Joss Whedon, and his choices in making his version of Much Ado reflect that.