[Music]
-Claudio, Isabella's brother, is going to
be put to death for fornication.
Isabella visits Angelo 
to ask for her brother's life.
She is a postulant nun and he is a new judge.
She's going to beg this judge for mercy.
-How now, fair maid?
-I am come to know your pleasure.
-'Measure for Measure' is usually perceived
to be a problem play,
which is that it seems to
not fall into the category of 
being either a comedy or a tragedy.
Some people... nobody dies, and...
but nor is it a bundle of laughs. So,
it comes under this heading
'problem play,' and within it,
there is a very interesting character, 
which is Isabella.
She goes and talks to this Angelo.
Angelo, far from allowing her 
to free her brother,
finds himself incredibly attracted to her.
-Plainly conceive, I love you.
-This sets an enormous problem for her, 
as he poses the offer
of sex for freedom for her brother.
-Which would you rather:
that the most just
law now took your brother's life,
or to redeem him,
give up your body
to such sweet uncleanness
as she that he hath stained.
-The outcome is an enormous surprise to her;
it's not the one she expected.
So, in that way, it's quite interesting seeing
a character who's very sure being thrown.
The next scene, which follows on,
is Isabella being alone,
dealing with the problem that she's landed herself
in the first scene.
In the third scene, she has 
to face her brother, and
worry the problem through with him.
So, it has three problems really,
and they're very close together, 
and they get worse.
I think the most exciting thing about this
scene is that Angelo and Isabella,
even though they are pitched enemies,
speak in exactly
the same type of language.
It's a very complex, highly intellectual,
highly metaphysical language,
most unusual for Shakespeare really.
It just so happens that Isabella is an intellectual, 
and Angelo is also an intellectual.
So, ironically, even though their language
is terribly intellectual,
the accumulation of it is rather sexual.
-Yet he must die.
-They tend to avoid using words to do with
physicality.
So , for instance, very early on in the scene,
Angelo says, 'Ah, fie, these filthy vices!'
They're both against 'filthy vices.'
So they have that in common.
- Fie, these filthy vices!
It were as good to pardon him that hath from
nature stolen a man already made, as to remit
their saucy sweetness that do coin
- heaven's image in stamps that are forbid.
which really is just to say, it were as good,
it were as easy to pardon somebody who has
an illegitimate child as to pardon somebody
who murders somebody.
I mean, it makes this equation between unwanted
babies and murder.
But he can't refer to babies 
that are unwanted somehow.
You feel that, you know, it has to be 
'saucy sweetness.'
And in this sibilant delight in consonance
and heightened language, 
as indeed all institutional language does.
It elevates itself higher than what you're
talking about.
- I something do excuse the thing I hate
for his advantage that I dearly love.
-I hate the sin, but I'd forgive it because
I love my brother.
Now, that's quite simple on one hand, and
becomes quite convoluted because they are
absolutely hair-splitting about the nature
of morality.
- Nay, women are frail, too.
- Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves;
which are as easy broke as they make forms.
-When you try and transpose Shakespeare's
theatrical writing onto the screen,
you have to try and find a filmic solution.
And I wasn't trying to endow the scene with
anything in particular,
except maybe to set it not in an office,
 where it's often set, Angelo's office,
but in a garden.
The look should maybe reverse the expectation
a little bit, so rather than Isabella approaching
Angelo to ask for her brother's life, we've
set up a situation where she's already waiting...
in a way, a false calm.
We've given the texture of the shots a sort
of overexposed, bright, acidic, green acid
look that I hope will connect with the acids
in her stomach,
that in some way it's a sort of nausea,
because worry and anxiety are what
fuel her particular emotional reality.
Despite the rational argument remaining, the
perspectives keep changing, shifting, into
very elaborate false angles and sizes.
This is because in a way, both their minds
of both characters are shifting very fast,
and cutting from thought to thought 
quite fast.
-Might there not be some charity in sin to
save this brother's life?
-Please you to do it, I'll take it as a peril
to my soul.
It is no sin at all, but charity.
- Pleased you to do it at peril of your soul,
were equal poise of sin and charity.
-I wanted to see how the cameramen responded
to the event that we had set up.
So, it has a slightly improvised feel, and the
improvisation is the way in which the cameras
were drawn in to this particular argument
between the two actors.
-How now, fair maid?
-I am come to know your pleasure.
-That you might know it would much better
please me than to demand what it is.
Your brother cannot live.
-Even so.
Heaven keep your honour.
-Yet may he live awhile;
and, it may be, as long as you or I;
yet he must die.
-Under your sentence?
-Yea.
-When, I beseech you?
That in his reprieve, longer or shorter, 
he may be so fitted that his soul sicken not.
-Ha! Fie, these filthy vices!
It were as good to pardon him that hath from
nature stolen a man already made, as to remit their
saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image
in stamps that are forbid:
'tis all as easy
falsely to take away a life made true as to
put metal in restrained means 
to make a false one.
-'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
-So you say?
Then I shall pose you quickly.
Which had you rather,
that the most just law
now took your brother's life;
or, to redeem him,
give up your body to such sweet uncleanness
as she that he hath stained?
-Sir, believe this,
I had rather give my body than my soul.
-I talk not of your soul:
our compell'd sins
stand more for number than for accompt.
-How say you?
-Nay, I'll not warrant that;
for I can speak against the thing I say.
Answer to this:
I, now the voice of the recorded law,
pronounce a sentence on your brother's life:
might there not be some charity in sin
to save this brother's life?
-Please you to do it,
I'll take it as a peril to my soul, it is
no sin at all, but charity.
-Pleased you to do it
at peril of your soul,
were equal poise of sin and charity.
-That I do beg his life, if it be sin,
Heaven let me bear it!
You granting of my suit,
if that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer
to have it added to the faults of mine,
and nothing of your answer.
-Nay, but hear me.
Your sense pursues not mine:
either you are ignorant,
or seem so crafty;
and that's not good.
-Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good,
but graciously to know I am no better.
-Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
when it doth tax itself;
as these black masks
proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder
than beauty could, displayed.
But mark me;
to be received plain,
I'll speak more gross:
your brother is to die.
-So.
-And his offence is
so as it appears, 
accountant to the law upon that pain.
-True.
-Admit no other way to save his life,
as I subscribe not that, nor any other, 
but in the loss of question,
that you, his sister,
finding yourself desired of such a person,
whose credit with the judge,
or own great place,
could fetch your brother from the manacles
of the all-binding law;
and that there were
no earthly mean, but that either
you must lay down the treasures of your body
to the supposed,
or else to let him suffer;
what would you do?
-As much for my poor brother as myself:
that is, were I under the terms of death,
the impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
and strip myself to death, as to a bed
that longing have been sick for, 
ere I'd yield my body up to shame.
-Then must your brother die.
-And 'twere the cheaper way:
better it were a brother died at once,
than that a sister, by redeeming him,
should die forever.
-Were not you then as cruel as the sentence
that you have slandered so?
-Ignomy in ransom and free pardon
are of two houses:
lawful mercy is nothing kin 
to foul redemption.
-You seemed of late to make the law a tyrant;
and rather proved the sliding of your brother
a merriment than a vice.
-Pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out,
to have what we would have, 
we speak not what we mean.
I something do excuse the thing I hate,
for his advantage that I dearly love.
-We are all frail.
-Else let my brother die,
if not a feodary, but only he
owe and succeed thy weakness.
-Nay, women are frail too.
-Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves;
which are as easy broke as they make forms.
Women!
Help Heaven!
Men their creation mar in profiting by them.
Nay, call us ten times frail;
for we are soft as our complexions are,
and credulous to false prints.
-I think it well:
and from this testimony of your own sex,
since I suppose we are to be made no stronger
than faults may shake our frames,
let me be bold;
I do arrest your words.
Be that you are,
that is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;
if you be one,
as you are well expressed 
by all external warrants,
show it now,
by putting on the destined livery.
-I have no tongue but one:
gentle my lord,
let me entreat you speak the former language.
-Plainly conceive, I love you.
-My brother did love Juliet,
and you tell me that he shall die for it.
-He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.
-I know
your virtue hath a licence in it,
which seems a little fouler than it is,
to pluck on others.
-Believe me, on mine honour,
my words express my purpose.
-Little honour to be much believed,
and most pernicious purpose!
Seeming,
seeming!
I will proclaim thee, Angelo;
look for it:
sign me a present pardon for my brother,
or with an outstretched throat
I'll tell the world aloud
what man thou art.
-Who will believe thee, Isabel?
My unsoiled name,
the austereness of my life,
my vouch against you, 
and my place in the state,
will so your accusation overweigh,
that you will stifle up in your own report
and smell of calumny.
I have begun,
and now I give my sensual race the rein.
Fit thy consent to my sweet appetite;
lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,
that banish what they sue for;
redeem thy brother
by yielding up thy body to my will;
or else
must he not only die the death,
but thy unkindness shall his death draw out
to lingering sufferance.
Answer me tomorrow,
or, by the affection that now guides me most,
I'll prove a tyrant to him.
As for you,
say what you can.
My false o'erweighs your true.
-The problem at the end of the scene 
with Angelo is, for Isabella,
how far is she willing to go 
to save her brother's life?
Is she going to sleep with Angelo, 
and therefore forfeit her vow of chastity
and save her brother's life,
or is she going to allow her brother to die
 and save her own virginity?
