If I were to cast “The Bacahae: A
Communion Rite” I would cast Johnny Depp as Dionysos and Tom Hollander as
Pentheus. Initially, I was inspired by the movie “Pirate of the Caribbean: At
World’s End” where Johnny Depp is casted as the mischievous and mysterious
Captain Jack Sparrow and Tom Hollander is casted as the antagonistic Lord
Beckett.
In this movie, Captain Jack
Sparrow was the center of attention.
He is depicted as unpredictable, adventurous and strange. Often times,
Jack Sparrow is seen drinking alcohol and enjoying the time of his life while
making everyone else’s life more chaotic. However, despite his chaotic methods,
the captain always seems to have a plan to triumph in the end. Thus, everyone
always obey and follow his orders. On the other hand, at many moments in the
movie, the captain is calm, collected and devious. Throughout the movie, the
captain causes the audience to wonder whether his acts and stunts are
intentional and strategically planned or successful by luck.
Johnny Depp would be the perfect
candidate for Dionysos due to his convincing performance in “Pirates of the
Caribbean.” The Character, Jack Sparrow, in itself represents parts of
Dionysos’ abilities. In “The Bacchae,” Dionysos is a god who wishes to liberate
the citizens of Thebes through alcohol and release of wild emotions. He despises Pentheus’ ideals and is eager
to liberate Thebes from Pentheus’ rule and often uses strange ways to punish
and trick Pentheus into worshipping him. In addition, Dionysos also calls
himself Bromius. When Bromius is in the context, he is portrayed as a calm,
collected and dignified character. This is illustrated clearly when Pentheus
could not shake the will in Bromius when he was imprisoned by Pentheus. Jack
Sparrow is similar in that he uses playful approaches to solve the dilemmas at
hand and never reveals his true plans. The captain is also always seen with his
arms around women and rum indicating his lack of concern for manners and proper
image. Furthermore, Johnny Depp has also demonstrated the diversity in his
acting through many of his other works. His flexibility and skill is what
ultimately convinces me to cast him as Dionysos in “The Bacchae.”
Lord Beckett in the movie “Pirates
of Caribbean” was the main antagonist. He directs the British military and
planned to take over the seas and eliminates the last of the pirates. Lord
Beckett is power hungry and is very rigid towards rules and regulations. To defeat the pirates, Becket had to
black mail and team up with Davy Jones to gain enough power. In other words,
Lord Beckett had to strategize against the pirates in the their own territory. Although he seems to succeed at first,
Lord Beckett is overpowered under the attack of the pirates in their final
battle leaving him awestruck and dumbfounded standing in the middle of a
sinking ship.
Tom Hollander was very successful
in portraying Lord Beckett in the movie. His movements and speech was formal
and cordial but at the same time very authoritative. Similar to Pentheus, Lord
Beckett indulged in the materialistic ideas of entrapment, power and control.
In “The Bacchae,” Pentheus is depicted as a cold and cruel dictator. Pentheus
is fixated on the idea of a proper life and order just as Lord Beckett insisted
upon the elimination of piracy. Ultimately, both Pentheus and Lord Beckett
failed to defeat their opponents. Furthermore, both lost to their opponents
when they attempted to assimilate to their opponents’ culture and environment. Other
than his depiction of Lord Beckett, Tom Hollander also performed a perfect
image of Mr. Collins in the movie “Pride and Prejudice.” Mr. Collins was also
an uptight and orderly character that seems boring and strict. Through my
assessments of these two movies, I am confident that Tom Hollander would carry
out Pentheus’ character brilliantly.
Tom Hollander: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0390903/
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