Review: The Taming of the Shrew (1967)

The 1967 film adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, advances an interpretation of Petruchio and Katherina as a twisted but perfect match. Indeed, the relationship between Petruchio and Kate is Zeffirelli's primary interest. Elizabeth Taylor (Katherina) does an exceptional job capturing Kate's unruliness while keeping her a sympathetic character. Richard Burton (Petruchio) is slightly less original in performance, but provides an apt foil and scene partner for Taylor.

The movie opens with a vibrant, paradoxical Padua: religious practice coexists with public drunkenness and revelry. Bakhtin's theory of the carnivalesque comes to mind as the inhabitants of Padua partake in unruliness in a merry, festive spirit. While this outdoor Padua is boisterous, it's all in good fun: for example, Bianca is unveiled by a young man in a prank that she clearly enjoys.

It is in this spirit of merry social transgression that Petruchio is introduced. Our first impression of him is his rude manners—his drunkenness and the image of his feet on the table. Zeffirelli lays the groundwork for Petruchio's violent tendencies: he is violent with Hortensio and breaks drinking glasses and wall decor. But we audience members, fresh from scenes of boisterousness, do not yet realize the gravity of his violent nature.

Kate is introduced to us like an animal: she snarls; discussions of lions and boars surround her cameos; Zeffirelli includes many close-up shots of Taylor's immediately recognizable eyes. Like Petruchio, Kate throws around the furniture of the rooms she enters. Her unruliness, mostly in the beginning of the film, is conveyed through her cadence of speech and her messy hair. In one notable moment, she even tussles the hair of her younger sister, Bianca (played by Natasha Pyne). It is as if Kate's unruliness, in this moment, is contagious: Bianca yells back, nearly as wild and snarly as her older sister. Thus, both Petruchio and Kate are introduced to us as unruly and defiant in similar ways. They are likewise connected by their mocking, sneering laughter throughout the film.

When they meet for the first time, there is a brief moment of stillness. But for that moment, physical strength is at play from the very beginning of Petruchio's "courtship" of Kate. Zeffirelli emphasizes the connection between violence and sexual foreplay in Act 2, Scene 1—the scene where Petruchio first articulates to Kate his intentions to tame her as his wife. Petruchio chases and tackles Kate on a bed of wool, at one point partially undressing himself to swing on a rope to catch her. Kate beats Petruchio onscreen, but Petruchio does not beat Kate. Kate is injured not as a direct result of Petruchio's actions, but as a result of her own: she injures herself as she fights against him. The result is a moment of forced tenderness, where Petruchio helps a limping Kate walk back to her room. Kate's father Signor Baptista (played by Michael Hordern) looks on in amazement at Petruchio's success—which we see as Kate's first humiliation in the film.

Zeffirelli conveys the status of women in Shakespeare's Padua through architecture. Women are physically confined in towers, locked behind doors, and forced to peer out of windows as the men in their lives make decisions about their lives.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design (as well as Best Art Direction), and for good reason. Petruchio is often dressed like a pirate or conquistador. For her wedding to Petruchio, Kate wears a costume that immediately recalls one of Elizabeth Taylor's other iconic roles: Cleopatra in Cleopatra (1963, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, also starring Richard Burton as Taylor's love interest, Mark Antony). Petruchio arrives at the wedding late and drunk, carrying animal carcasses from a hunt with him—a symbol of his ruthlessness. Already by the wedding, Petruchio is a much more destructive force than Kate. This has two effects: Kate is a more sympathetic character than Petruchio, and she has already been somewhat tamed. Petruchio outsmarts Kate at the altar: when asked if she will take Petruchio as her husband, she opens to mouth to say "I will not!" but Petruchio kisses her right before she can say "not." This is an ingenious way on Zeffirelli's part to bring about her forced consent to the marriage.

Still from Kate and Petruchio's wedding
in Franco Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew (1967)

At the opening of Act 4, Kate rides to Petruchio's home on a donkey behind Petruchio and Grumio. When she falls in the mud, she expects some help or tenderness from her new husband—perhaps a reprise of Act 2, Scene 1, where he helped her walk—but gets none. From this point onwards, Petruchio unleashes his full cruelty. When he arrives at his castle, he faults his servants for not treating Kate like a lady—a moment of cruel, self-conscious irony. Architecture once again reveals Kate's position: trapped in a cold, unwelcoming castle full of men.

But Kate still has some spunk left in her. One evening in the bedroom, she suckers Petruchio in with a sweet glance, only to hit him over the head with a pot when he comes close enough. He destroys the posts of their marriage bed, but still does not lay a hand on her. Perhaps Zeffirelli felt that a 1960s audience would never forgive Petruchio for beating a woman: in the film, Petruchio never perpetrates direct violence, either physical or sexual, on Kate.

At Petruchio's castle, Kate becomes an even more sympathetic character by bonding with the servants and treating them with respect. In a moment of kindness, Petruchio arranges a tailor to come dress Kate for Bianca's wedding. In response, Kate reaches out and touches Petruchio of her own will for the first time in the film. We get the sense that there is some potential for a touching relationship between them. This film is one of the only productions of The Taming of the Shrew that gives this heaviness and sense of something lost. The moment of tenderness is short-lived, however, as Petruchio soon picks a verbal fight with Kate over the outfit. He rips her beautiful garment, still on the female mannequin, apart in front of the tailor. This is the closest Zeffirelli comes to showing Petruchio enact violence on Kate's body. But this act of symbolic violence is incredibly powerful, perhaps even more chilling than a direct act of violence would have been. The camera pans on all the destruction Petruchio has caused, including a Kate stripped of dignity and fine dress.

The culmination of the play—Kate's "My hand is ready, may it do him ease" speech in Act 5, Scene 2—is one of the trickiest moments in any of Shakespeare's plays for actors and directors. Zeffirelli and Taylor make limited efforts to make the speech plausible; it remains mysterious and opaque. Zeffirelli cuts the last two lines of the play so that Petruchio has the final word, with the sense of closure his rhyming couplet. We are left to wonder: is Kate's final speech simply a performance to appease Petruchio in public, or has Petruchio genuinely tamed Kate? If he has, has he done so for good?