Midsummer’s Night’s Dream Julie Taymor, 2014, 160 min A film by Julie Taymor of Julie Taymor’s much heralded and sold-out production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, filmed at Theatre For A New Audience, Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, New York in 2014. Taymor is the creative force behind such productions as The Magic Flute (Metropolitan Opera), Across the Universe, Frida, and of course the highest grossing Broadway musical of all time, The Lion King. Of all Shakespeare’s plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the most phantasmagorical, featuring fairies, spells, and hallucinatory lovers. Julie Taymor turns out a production that’s visually breathtaking, funny, sexy and darkly poetic. With cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto (Argo, Frida) and music by Academy Award-winning composer Elliot Goldenthal, this is an immersive, inventive cinematic experience that was filmed during the show’s highly acclaimed inaugural run. The feats of visual imagination are ingenious and plentiful, but beating at the centre of the film is an emotionally moving take on the deeper human aspects of this beloved tale. In honor of mid-summer, the 62nd anniversary of Joseph Papp’s Shakespeare in the Park, and the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
