Michael Hoffman (1999)

Cast List Kevin Kline ... Nick Bottom Michelle Pfeiffer ... Titania Rupert Everett ... Oberon Stanley Tucci ... Puck Calista Flockhart ... Helena Anna Friel ... Hermia Christian Bale ... Demetrius Dominic West ... Lysander David Strathairn ... Theseus Sophie Marceau ... Hippolyta Roger Rees ... Peter Quince Max Wright ... Robin Starveling Gregory Jbara ... Snug Bill Irwin ... Tom Snout Sam Rockwell ... Francis Flute Bernard Hill ... Egeus John Sessions ... Philostrate

18th Century Elements ‘Hoffman began by updating the play to the late nineteenth century and changing the setting from classical Athens to Tuscany’ ‘The late Victorian age, Hoffman says in the preface to his published screenplay, was a time when social convention was still a large part of everyday life. It was also a time when to be an aristocrat still meant something.’ Hoffman: “there seemed no better visual metaphor for the representation of the Self than stiff collars, high necklines, tight corsets, and silly accessories” – ‘all suggesting the kind of sexuality that the film develops’

‘the director Michael Hoffman found himself trying to create something still different from what had gone before’ Stanley Kauffman: ‘The turn of century was far enough back to support romance, yet close enough so that the suits and dresses looked something like our clothes, would fell “comfortable” to us’ James Bulman, Letters to the author: has said the nineteenth century ushered in the Age of Freud: ‘Hoffman creates a world of dreams and sexual symbols… that invoke ideas of the unconscious. The fairy scenes mix erotic play, narcissism, and classical allusions that… suggest thinly repressed sexuality that underlies Victorian decorum’

Promotional flyer distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures and Regency Enterprises stated: “Amidst a sensuous and charming world of terraced hillsides and succulent culinary delights, Shakespeare’s characters get a new comic lease on life as they explore their world on the new-fangled invention of the bicycle. Flying into the wood on two wheels, Tuscan nobles, actors and lovers find themselves at the mercy of mischievous sprites who rule the natural world.”