Shakespeare on war & rebellion

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... Protests, hunger strikes SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 2012 11 “Coriolanus,” directed by Ralph Fi­ ennes, from William Shakespeare’s play, screenplay by John Logan. Star­ ring Ralph Fiennes, Vanessa Redgrave, and Gerard Butler. R billed as Shakespeare’s political alph Fienne’s “Coriolanus,” often tragedy, is set in contemporary times. Though Shakespeare wrote the play over 400 years ago, its themes of mili­ tary and state power, familial loyalty, and betrayal resonate today. The film was shot in Belgrade, Serbia, and in Montenegro using hand-held cameras on the desolate exterior scenes, in bleak greys and blues.

It was necessary for screenwriter John Logan to edit some of the speeches, but he did it judiciously. He did not alter Shakespeare’s blank verse in iambic pentameter, which the Bard had per­ fected in later plays such as “Coriola­ nus.” Once Shakespeare had mastered traditional blank verse, he began to vary its flow—a technique that released the new power and flexibility of the poetry heard in this film.

Thus Logan’s script gave the actors lines with startling impact, so that they sounded modern, as when one char­ acter accuses another of “breaking his oath and resolution like/A twist of rot­ ten silk.” These exchanges come off as if they were written for an incisively worked, contemporary thriller.

The film was so intense and gripping that it didn’t feel like it was almost twohours long.

The film opens with a close-up of a knife being sharpened on a whetstone— a hint that it will be employed later on to make a statement, and we are not dis­ appointed. Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes) is the name given to Roman war hero Caius Martius in honor of the city he and his troops conquered from the Vol­ cians. His military rivals were headed by his equal and nemesis, Tullus Audifi­ (continued from page 3: “Protests, hunger strikes in Palestine and Bahrain”) ment in the country against dictator­ ship and discrimination against its Shia citizens.

Al-Khawaja has suffered prolonged torture while in detention, and had his jaw broken in four places when police and masked men burst into his daughter’s home and seized him.

A little more than a month after his hunger strike began, hundreds of thousands of protesters marched in Bahrain against the regime. In a country of one and a quarter mil­ lion, this may have been the greatest per capita turnout of any rally in the world’s history.

Bahrain is home to the U.S. Fifth Naval Fleet, the base for all naval forces positioned to be ready for ac­ tion against any country in the Mid­ dle East and East Africa. The fleet is also responsible for patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, and its command­ ers have repeatedly threatened Iran should the latter close the straits in retaliation for a possible attack by the U.S. and/or Israel.

us, masterfully played by Gerard Butler.

(Butler had suffered a run of disastrous films and romantic comedies; this role redeems him.)

During the battle, Coriolanus ends up with a Volcian soldier’s blood streak­ ing down his shaved head. He continues slashing his enemies, the blood now serving as the mark of a warrior.

Coriolanus is a complex character who shies away from public accolades. Upon his victorious return to Rome, the cun­ ning politician Menenius (noted Shake­ spearean actor Brian Cox) had arranged a hero’s welcome. Coriolanus disdains giving a speech, much to the dismay of his mother, Volumnia, played to perfec­ tion by the great actor and political ac­ tivist, Vanessa Redgrave, and his wife, Virgilia (Jessica Chastain), who has little to do but stand by her man.

His pre-adolescent son, Young Mar­ tius (Harry Fenn), is his father’s clone down to the smart military uniform and wooden sword.

Saijad Hussain / AFP / Getty Images A rally in solidarity with Al-Kha­ waja was held in Bahrain on March 31, but shortly before its scheduled starting time authorities arrested Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bah­ rain Centre for Human Rights, the country’s foremost anti-repression organization.

As has been the case in each pro­ test—which have been occurring every week, often more frequently, since the uprising began a year ago— security forces attacked marchers with tear gas, rubber bullets, sound grenades, lead pellet shotguns, and live ammunition. A Bahraini journal­ ist was killed.

Supporters of the opposition are asking for calls to be made on behalf of Mr. Al-Khawaja and other victims of repression. See http://www.bah­ rainhrd.org/act_now.html. for ways to participate. n (Photo) An Indian Shiite child at Mumbai protest against repression of demonstrations in Bahrain, March 25, 2011.

(From left) John Kani, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain, and Henry Fenn in Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus.”

Not everyone is thrilled by his return. He has to face members of his own council who don’t agree with his tyran­ nical methods as well as mobs of citizen protesters led by Tamara (Lubna Aza­ bal) and Cassius (Ashraf Barhom) who call him out for freezing their grain allo­ cations and cutting back public services. These scenes could have come directly from any of today’s Occupy Movements or Arab Spring protests.

The patrician establishment insists that Coriolanus accept the role of head of state, while his political detractors vehemently oppose him. Reluctantly, Coriolanus accepts the post. The pow­ er of the people is such, however, that they succeed in shouting him down, demanding he leave—banished from Rome. Would that such measures could ... Scapegoat (continued from page 8: “Kevin Cooper: A ‘Scapegoat’ on Death Row”) the bar? In addition, the prosecution’s not disclosing the blue T-shirt to the defense was a major Brady violation that was so ex­ culpatory to Cooper on its own that it man­ dated a new trial.

Judge Huff’s way around this inconve­ nient hurdle was to find that the blue Tshirt was in reality the tan T-shirt, even though the blue shirt was found the day before the tan shirt in a different location from the bar and the woman who found the bloody blue shirt testified at the hearing that the shirt she found was blue.

Judge Huff’s handling of Cooper’s habe­ as proceedings led Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William Fletcher to write, “There’s no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing and flouted our direction to perform the two tests.”

At Gonzaga University School of Law on April 12, 2010, Judge Fletcher delivered a ... Mulcair (continued from page 9: “Toronto’s 26th Annual Socialist May Day Celebration: Fighting for the 99%”)

site increased ten-fold in the week lead­ ing up to the convention—so much so that the electronic band width of the site had to be increased. Scores of NDPers joined the SC via the internet and at the convention. News media covered and carried the SC message to millions.

Additionally, supporters of Socialist Ac­ tion received nearly $200 in sales of SA newspapers and buttons.

Without winning a majority of the 4.5 million who voted NDP/NPD on May 2, 2011, there will be no socialism, and all the past labour, social, and environmen­ tal gains of the past may be lost. Win­ ning that majority is the goal to which happen here, rather than officials arresting and imprisoning people for expressing their First Amend­ ment rights!

Scenes show the banished Coro­ lianus as a wandering back-packwearing homeless person; his only companion is a walking stick. He goes unshaven and grows his hair long, trekking through bleak, wintry villages, seemingly unoc­ cupied except for roaming packs of dogs.

Planning his revenge on Rome and its people, he shows up in Aufidius’s compound. He quickly convinces the Volcian commander to take him on, despite the fact that they are sworn enemies, so together they can conquer the people of the city that banished him.

But the scheme falls apart be­ cause Coriolanus is, after all, his moth­ er’s son. He does what she wants: save her people from suffering the horrors of war. That Aufidius has been betrayed doesn’t fare well for Coriolanus. The knife we saw in the opening scene is put to use.

Coriolanus is not one of Shakespeare’s sympathetic heroes. One literary critic refers to him as “an astonishingly cheer­ less snob, a schoolboy crazed with a particular notion of privilege and pos­ sessed of a demented ideal of authority.” He could have been referring to any one of our U.S. presidents and the influential rich and powerful in and out of the mili­ tary; certainly the arrogant Dick Cheney comes to mind. Especially since Sept. 11, 2001, White House administra­ tions—including the current one—have ramped up their imperialistic goals with little heed to the disastrous effects. But they, like Coriolanus, must confront an increasingly enraged people. n lecture on the subject of the death penalty, holding that the problems with the admin­ istration of it are widespread and endemic rather than merely regional or local. To illustrate he cited the Kevin Cooper case, stating, “The case I am about to describe is horrible in many ways. The murders were horrible. Kevin Cooper, the man now sit­ ting on death row, may well be—and in my view probably is—innocent. And he is on death row because the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department framed him.”

Judge Fletcher, a Rhodes Scholar who at­ tended Oxford University with Bill Clinton, said what happened in the Cooper case “is a familiar story. It is by no means the usual story. But it happens often enough to be familiar. The police are under heavy pressure to solve a high profile crime. They know, or think they know, who did the crime. And they plant evidence to help their case along.”

As a result, Kevin Cooper has now spent half of his life on death row for a crime he had nothing to do with. He is, in a word, a scapegoat. n the NDP Socialist Caucus is dedicated.

With the accelerated shift to the right at its summit, the battle for the future of the NDP and its allied unions is ever more pressing. Mulcair will enjoy a grace period, but it won’t last forever.

The last time New Democrats elected a liberal as party leader, it was Bob Rae in Ontario in 1982. The 1990-95 Rae gov­ ernment nearly gutted the Ontario NDP. Today, there’s more at stake, and the rul­ ers have less room for maneuver given the depth of the global capitalist crisis. The size and strength of the NDP social­ ist left will be critical in preventing a similar outcome at the federal level.

The struggle for a Workers’ Agenda in the unions and the NDP, where it mat­ ters most, continues. If you want to win, sooner than later, join us now. n

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Julie Fletcher / AP