“Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, / Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. / Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments / Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices / That, if I then had waked after long sleep / Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming / The clouds methought would open and show riches / Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked / I cried to dream again" (3.2).
I used images of pop star Frank Ocean, actress Zoe Kravitz, and a Gucci campaign to represent Caliban because of the role nature in the photos, the expressions, and the photos’ composition. Using “desirable,” famous people and brands with flexible appearance and gender, helped me cut the essence I saw from Caliban. Beautiful but unhappy and misunderstood.
It gave him permission to be soft, and aesthetically pleasing. The rest of the images try to capture the side of the play that finds the island beautiful by matching and complementing the images that reminded me of Caliban and his quote. In this way it is The Tempest according Caliban and we get to see a prettier side of the island.
My composition of the collage is supposed to represent that as well, with act three as the intended focal point and the other acts and images playing a supporting role. None of the images I used for Caliban as “happy,” so to contrast I picked a very happy image for Ferdinand and Miranda getting Prospero’s blessing. Also, only Caliaban’s images and the storm image have blue tones.
As I was recalling film and photography references I made while we were reading, I realized how sad the expressions of the people and the implications of the Gucci cheetah image are. This collage unlocks a lot of Caliban’s sadness and lets him channel it as that instead of as anger or contempt. That edge is what he looses, I went for a more vulnerable conception where it is harder to see Caliban as antagonistic because he is associated with beautiful, soft images. But, any agency he stood to gain from a rough exterior would be lost in this version.
I used an image of a hurricane from above for act one scene one. This photo is of a much larger storm, but I wanted to capture the emotional and plot implications of The Tempest’s tempest, which are huge.
As soon as I started reading Caliban in act one scene two, I remembered these images of Zoe Kravitz from The Road Within which is a movie about a journey though nature, at this point she is in a lot of pain and lies down in the grass to feel connected to something, which reminded me of Caliban and his connection to the island. I put those stills over the image of a couple at a placid beach to represent Prospero and Miranda’s conversation about their backstory because even through it is new information for Miranda, to me it seemed like the least traumatic part of this act.
I represented act two scene one with an image of a woman asleep on grass. This image is from an older set of photos and I don’t know the name of the photographer but it does have a very dreamy vibe and seems, in a way, enchanted like the men who Ariel made fall asleep.
Gucci created this image of a cheetah inside a house for a fall/winter ad campaign and I chose it to represent Caliban in Act two scene two. He’s searching for liberation by entering into the service of anyone other than Prospero because that action is similarly caging and so juxtaposed with what we normally think of as freedom. I both mirrored and flipped the image because in this scene Caliban doubles down on being a servant but is still very much of two minds since he does so in the name of freedom.
For act three scene one, I used this still of hands touching from a movie by Jean Luc Godard. I picked it because both the people are wearing sweaters that have a straight-laced, proper aesthetic and only their hands are touching. This reminded me of Miranda and Ferdinand’s courtship, which is very by the book and proper. The almost uptight feeling of this photo contrasts the more raw feeling images used to represent Caliban.
Act three scene two is where Caliban delivers his famous lines about how the island is beautiful and not to be feared. This image of Frank Ocean taken by Petra Collins captures a mystical feeling through Collins’ use of a smoke machine and blue lights that fits the peaceful but somewhat hypnotic version of the island described through Caliban’s eyes. Also, I thought using a picture of Frank Ocean here was fitting because he is a brilliant lyricist and poet in that way and these lines are some of the most poetic in the play.
The picture I chose for scene three of act three has been saved on my computer for quite some time because I think it’s just sweet. A nice, warm image of friends sharing a meal on a rooftop. I chose it to represent the feast that Prospero interrupts.
Like all the images for act three I made it a circle because it is important and I wanted to draw special attention to it, but I also cropped it so the circle could not be complete. This is because all of the plot points in this act are not finished. Miranda and Ferdinand aren’t married yet, we don’t know what will become of Caliban, and Prospero is not done with the shipwrecked people yet.
For act four I used another photo I’ve had saved forever of a couple walking in what I think is Italy. If I’m right and it is Italy that is meaningful since Miranda and Ferdinand are both from Italy originally. This couple is supposed to represent the two getting Prospero’s blessing and I picked it because they look so smitten, almost sickly sweet, similar to the relationship in the play. I included an image of mars overhead to represent the supernatural presences at the masque.
The image for act five is actually two Photoshopped together. I took the sky out of the image of the people on the boat and replaced it with an image taken by a telescope in space. This is a reference to Prospero in the epilogue saying he is trapped unless the audience claps. Even after getting off stage I feel like he will still be trapped by the confines of earth and the sky looming above, especially without his powers. The boat is on placid water because Ariel insures they have a safe journey home.