The Beggar's Opera: Sets & Camera Angles

THE BEGGAR'S OPERA: SETS & CAMERA ANGLES

The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera written in 1728 by John Gay. The Opera has been adapted to the theatre several times and was made into film versions in 1953 and 1983 respectively. Peter Brook was the first director to adapt the opera into a film. He released The Beggar's Opera starring the famous Laurence Olivier in 1953. Thirty years later, thedirector Jonathan Miller released another version of the movie, an adaptation which follows the plot of the story/opera? in a more detailed way.
Brook's The Beggar's Opera is presented in a frame story, where the beggar talks to the player about the opera he composes and introduces the story. This framing device is changed in the first film adaptation; the beggar himself is a prisoner inNewgate with the real Macheath and they introduce the main plot of the play while Macheath reads the story. This is obviously projected in the setting, which is very detailed. The movie begins with the setting of Newgate prison where we find Macheath inside a prison cell and there are several beggars in the scene, including the author of the Opera.
Jonathan Miller's adaptation for the BBC, on theother hand, is more theatrical and follows the original text in almost every single detail. The frame device is presented with the player and the beggar introducing the opera while the actors and actresses get ready for the performance. Jonathan Miller does not project? the movie as Peter Brook does; in this case the movie is not a big production, since Jonathan Miller makes a low budget filmintentionally to create the atmosphere of the original text. The play is written to be performed on stage, and although Miller uses all kinds of film techniques, he follows the original story and presents the movie as a theatrical play, as a story performed on a real stage. This is crucial for the settings, as there are not too many sets in Jonathan Miller's, and sometimes we have the same backgroundsfor different events.








Polly is the daughter of the Peachums. She is secretly married to Macheath, a famous highwayman, who is one of her father's clients. In Peter Brook's production, the first setting where we find Polly is in a boat on a lake, where in its dirty waters she finds a photo of her beloved Captain Macheath. This setting is very symbolic, the water itself being asymbol of purity in literature, and this is our first glance of the character of Polly. However, the director stresses that the water is very dirty. This, along with Polly finding a photograph of Captain Macheath floating on the dirty water, are probably part of the satire of the love story between Polly and Macheath.









The house of the Peachums is also very symbolic. Mr Peachumis a fence, and is obsessed with making profit from his business. In both movies, the sets for the same scene are presented in a messy? way???, decorated with all kinds of objects that were probably stolen and will be sold to make profit for the family. While in Peter Brook's adaptation of the story, this setting is not very relevant as we barely see it in the movie, in Jonathan Miller'sadaptation it is one of the main settings and many events take place in the house of the Peachums. This setting also serves for the first encounter of Polly and Macheath in Jonathan Miller's film as the settings are more limited.
On the other hand, Peter Brook uses a different setting for this event; the love between Captain Macheath and Polly is forbidden by the Peachums, who even plan to killMacheath to take him out of Polly's life, so that is why for this event it is very important that they meet in a discreet and isolated place. For this occasion, Peter Brook chooses a stable, which is presented full of straw and horses. This is the perfect location for the lovers to meet, profess their love and sing songs to each other.









House of the Peachums in Jonathan's Miller...