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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph "Not of an age, but for all time" - the William Shakespeare thread

Discussion in 'Community' started by Saintheart, Jul 1, 2014.

  1. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

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    Dec 16, 2000
    A good Collected Works of Shakespeare always doubles as a practical projectile weapon, too.
     
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  2. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

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    Dec 16, 2000
    Because I feel like triple posting, and because the subject of Shakespeare in film has sort of come up: I don't hold myself among that group of Shakespeare fans who believe the only way to experience Shakespeare is on a live stage. To some extent all objections to arguments for "authentic" Shakespeare experiences can be dismissed (or at least deflated) by one line in Star Trek VI: "You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have heard him in the original Klingon!" Like it or not, the year 1600 is four hundred years gone and the only way you're going to get a truly authentic Shakespeare experience is with a time machine. Indeed the loss of the authentic Shakespearean experience probably came a lot sooner than 2010: when the Puritans got into power in England, one of the first cheerless things they did was to shut down the Globe and public theatres, believing it to be unchristian to have fun. Those theatres stayed shut for a good twenty years, with the result that most if not all of that generation of actors who had worked with Shakespeare or learned at the feet of Shakespeare or the King's Men died off -- an analogue as tragic and complete as the typical cultural destruction of indigenous cultures which followed colonisation from Europe in many cases. Much acting technique, moreso then than now, was or could only be transmitted by word of mouth or by demonstration, so even as early as a century after Shakespeare's death substantial reconstruction was required.

    Film's advantages for Shakespeare outweigh, in my view, its disadvantages: while film loses some immediacy in no longer being live, and forces the audience to the point of view the filmmaker selects, it also allows close-ups and does not require the actor to solve the challenge of convincingly emoting while having to just about shout his lines in order to reach the rear of the house. (A digression: some Shakespearean scholars point out that Shakespeare's later work may well have been composed to take advantage of the particular space available to him at that point. While Shakespeare's "middle" work was composed for and performed at the day-only, open-to-the-sky Globe theatre, his later work was performed at Blackfriars Theatre, a theatre which could host performances by night and which allowed lighting to be manipulated by adroit use of candlelight.)

    Rosenbaum puts forward a powerful proposition that you are better served watching four powerful filmed performances of some of Shakespeare's work than any number of mediocre or pedestrian performances on stage, that you "get" more of Shakespeare with a single strong performance than you do out of half a dozen crappy ones. I'll be testing this proposition for myself when I get some time in the months to come. The four performances he puts forward are the following--

    • Chimes at Midnight, also known as Falstaff in the UK. (1966) This is Orson Welles' abridged version of Henry IV and Henry V, with a small smattering of lines from Merry Wives of Windsor for good measure. Welles plays Falstaff, John Gielgud Henry IV. Welles called Falstaff Shakespeare's greatest creation, perhaps because Welles identified with the fat old bugger.
    • Richard III (1955) -- written and produced by Sir Laurence Olivier; England's greatest actor takes on England's greatest playwright in what is popularly acclaimed as Olivier's best adaptation of Shakespearean material. This was re-released in America in 1966 where it apparently broke box office records in many cities at the time. Four knights make up the cast: Sir Laurence, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Ralph Richardson, and Sir Cedric Hardwicke.
    • Hamlet (1964) -- not really a film adaptation as such but rather a filming of the play on Broadway, but it is the cast that makes it: Hamlet is played by Richard Burton, he who married Elizabeth Taylor twice, and the gossip of which probably led this performance to be the longest run of Hamlet on Broadway - 137 performances, Burton receiving a Tony for his performance. It's also directed by Sir John Gielgud. By sheer luck does this recording even survive - by contractual agreement all prints of the film were meant to be destroyed after its theatrical run. One print survived - found in Burton's garage after his death, and which luckily his widow allowed to be distributed.
    • King Lear (1971) -- starring Paul Scofield, but again it's the director who gives this film its reputation: Peter Brook, also known as the man who told the world how to play Shakespeare after a nigh-legendary run of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1970 which rewrote the book on how to stage Shakespearean drama.
     
  3. Todd the Jedi

    Todd the Jedi Mod and Loving Tyrant of SWTV, Lit, & Collecting star 6 Staff Member Manager

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    Oct 16, 2008
    Of those I've only seen Chimes at Midnight, but I mostly just watched that because Orson Welles. I agree that adapting plays into film has its pros and cons, but I definitely don't see anything too wrong with it. Even Branagh's Hamlet with its 4-hour runtime is a great way to experience Shakespeare.

    Still, I've really not seen too many film adaptations of Shakespeare over stage performances. I'm just not too into seeing a movie of one of his plays. I'd rather see the play because that's how I think of his works- as products of the stage, not the big screen.
     
  4. Juke Skywalker

    Juke Skywalker Force Ghost star 5

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    Mar 27, 2004
    Going to see Gibson's Hamlet on a class field trip was what qualified as studying Shakespeare in my high school English Lit class. Honors English Lit. I say this, not to brag about being in "Honors" Lit, as I'm sure that was the result of some sort of clerical error, but to highlight the inadequacy of the curriculum of my high school at its highest level.

    That perfectly captures my feelings about Gibson's version.

    I got a bit more exposure to Shakespeare in college, having to take a gen-ed class called "The history of theater in Western Culture", where Macbeth was one of the four plays we studied. That opened the door a bit, but I didn't exactly rush in, much to my chagrin.

    I will say that of all of the film adaptations of Shakespeare's work that I've seen, my favorite by far is Kenneth Branagh's Henry V.
     
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  5. FatBurt

    FatBurt Sex Scarecrow Vanquisher star 6

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    Jul 21, 2003

    Arse of a teacher mainly but I never enjoyed the writing style and have never been able to get into it since
     
  6. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Mar 19, 1999


    Klingon or German. My most interesting performance of Hamlet had a fat, middle-age Klaus Maria Brandauer cast in the title role of a German-language production at the Burgtheater in Vienna. I've discussed this production on the JC before - Brandauer speaks all the ghost's lines as well as his own, making Hamlet in effect talk to himself.
     
  7. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

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    Dec 16, 2000
    That's a fairly common interpretation run with on Hamlet - the idea that the Ghost doesn't in fact exist, that it's all in Hamlet's head. And the German link is common, too -- I've seen it read that when Shakespeare first came back into vogue in the Romantic period, the Germans somewhat adopted Hamlet as their own, the play winding up very popular in Germany. Rosenbaum goes on to make a sad argument that Hamlet might've in fact contributed to a change in the national psyche, since Hamlet fundamentally dithers across the entire play and Germany as a group became determined to not be Hamlet ... thus leading to fifty productions of Merchant by the Nazis and so forth. It's a wide ball of an argument, but I always like grand unified theories like this. :)

    Anyway: on a sort of related topic, I've started watching the Richard Burton Hamlet. Not easy viewing since we're talking a grainy capture of a 1960s play on a computer monitor, but the sound quality is decent and coming across nicely. The Ghost in this Hamlet is represented as a huge shadow on the back wall, which in the minimalist environment of the play is frighteningly effective: the Ghost can grow from small to cyclopean in a smooth shift of the light, and can disappear by seeming to swallow up the whole stage. Very impressive so far. Burton seems to shout the odd word here or there which is jarring, but he's also mesmerising thus far.
     
  8. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

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    Aug 16, 2002
    But other characters see the ghost.
     
  9. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

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    Dec 16, 2000
    Which is the hardest part to deal with. On the other hand, only Hamlet speaks with the Ghost, or rather the Ghost only responds to Hamlet, so a more accurate interpretation might be that Hamlet's seeing the dead ghost of his father drives him utterly potty such that he believes the Ghost is imploring revenge when in fact it's nothing but a night shadow, a phantom and saying nothing at all - just as it said nothing to Marcellus and the rational Horatio ("rational" being the main reason I think that character's there).

    EDIT: There's also an intriguing ambiguity at the end of the Ghost's scenes in Act I, Scene V in that the (a?) Ghost appears to growl "Swear" from below the earth, but nobody except Hamlet reacts directly to it - the ambiguity being left that only Hamlet is hearing it.
     
  10. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Mar 19, 1999
    I like the idea of a Hamlet driven mad by his own suspicions even before he acknowledges them to himself. The audience arrives on the scene only after Hamlet has already been badly unbalanced by current events.
     
  11. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

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    Aug 16, 2002
    But the ghost doesn't tell him some paranoid fantasy. Claudius did indeed murder Hamlet, Sr. with poison.

    I just find it hard to take "it's all in Hamlet's head" interpretation seriously when it's not as though Shakespeare shies away from the supernatural playing major roles in his stories and also being motivators for a protagonist's downfall (see also: Macbeth).
     
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  12. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Hamlet is driven mad by his suspicions not just even though but also precisely because they are true. That doesn't mean the ghost is a figment of his imagination either. The play is big enough to encompass all those competing elements and keep them in check.
     
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  13. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

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    Dec 16, 2000
    Oh, there's no doubt the supernatural plays a massive part in virtually all of his plays - from memory there's at least a scholar or two who say that without the supernatural Shakespeare's plays are one and all completely drained of life. Still, I think you can make a case that Hamlet, being a clever, university-educated chap, may have intuited what the Ghost tells him for himself and simply projects the Ghost's speech onto its appearance. Remember Hamlet's friends try to dissuade him from following the Ghost - I think that's not just existential dread but also a warning that Hamlet risks his own sanity if he chooses to engage with the Ghost in private (a fascinating contradiction since Hamlet's merry men specifically go to Hamlet to get him to talk to the ghost.)

    Macbeth, too, certainly has supernatural levers being applied to him, but again their involvement is nuanced. Bringing up the subject of unanchored language, in older versions of Macbeth the Weird Sisters are called the Wayward Sisters, and most productions of Macbeth (well, the BBC version, anyway) omit the scene between said Wayward Sisters and Hecate where she remonstrates with them for getting all up in Macbeth's head without inviting her, with some suggestions left that Macbeth in a way has a penumbral darkness to him that frightens even her:

    FIRST WITCH
    Why, how now, Hecate! you look angerly.

    HECATE
    Have I not reason, beldams as you are,
    Saucy and overbold? How did you dare
    To trade and traffic with Macbeth
    In riddles and affairs of death;
    And I, the mistress of your charms,
    The close contriver of all harms,
    Was never call'd to bear my part,
    Or show the glory of our art?
    And, which is worse, all you have done
    Hath been but for a wayward son,
    Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,
    Loves for his own ends, not for you.
    But make amends now: get you gone...


    (Act III, Scene V). The dialogue of this scene seems to me directed at Hecate trying to keep utter chaos from descending by Macbeth's actions, from trying to hold some sort of (infernal) order in place which Macbeth has some capacity to upset.
     
  14. Penguinator

    Penguinator Former Mod star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    May 23, 2005

    I managed to convince my high school English lit teacher to let us watch the Branagh Hamlet instead of the Gibson Hamlet. Because I had watched it two years earlier when I was like 15.

    I was that guy.
     
  15. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

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    Dec 16, 2000
    What, the original Klingon?

    :D
     
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  16. Juke Skywalker

    Juke Skywalker Force Ghost star 5

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    Mar 27, 2004
    Given that the Branagh version is twice as long as the Gibson one, that likely meant two more days watching a movie rather than doing classwork. You're classmates should've bought your lunch all week.

    Speaking of the Branagh version, this thread has reignited my interest in the Bard, and I've got a few movie adaptations on tap, including Branagh's Hamlet (which I've never seen, but I hear is outstanding) and a re-watch of Gibson's, to start.
     
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  17. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

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    Dec 16, 2000
    Well, while we're on it, anyone got any good recommendations for film versions of Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra or Julius Caesar? Aside from the BBC versions, that is?

    Oh, and I do remember seeing a delightful take on Richard III with Ian McKellen - bringing it forward as to imply (IIRC) that Ian McKellen in the title role usurps basically Edward VI's title, it's set around the World War 2 period.
     
  18. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Nov 2, 2000
    Well, as to film versions, I would have to say that I didn't care for the Burton Hamlet. There's only one scene in it that really works as far as I'm concerned. That's the big scene between Hamlet and Polonius. Hume Cronyn is a joy as Polonius and, for my money, Burton is at his best in that scene, where he can really trot out his comic chops. I do love the concept of it being staged as a "rehearsal." That's a cool idea.

    And I must say that I absolutely loathe Olivier's Richard III. It's got no energy at all; and I think Olivier is frankly dreadful. It's his worst performance. I highly recommend McKellen's version. It's got energy to spare. And Nigel Hawthorne is the only actor I've seen nail Clarence's dream speech; it's sunk like a stone every time I've seen it live and neither Gielgud in Olivier's version or Alec Baldwin in Looking for Richard, both fine actors really, could do anything with it either. They're both pretty terrible actually. Plus Jim Broadbent as Buckingham = pure perfection.

    I've seen only two versions of Macbeth. The 1948 Orson Welles version isn't tremendously good. Welles is solid, but he occasionally loses the thread. Jeanette Nolan is a good Lady Macbeth. It has one genuinely phenomenal scene, interestingly enough one that doesn't involve either of the two leads. It's the scene were Macduff is told of the murder of his family. It's really, really good.

    But I highly recommend Throne of Blood, Kurosawa's Japanese language version with Toshiro Mifune. It keeps not a single line from the original play, which sets some people off, but it's just a magnificent film. Mifune's performance is, as always, ferocious and wildly entertaining. Isuzu Yamada is the most terrifying Lady Macbeth ever; she's incredibly unsettling. The film is just a masterpiece; to be expected with Kurosawa.

    As to Hamlet, mark me down as a partisan for the Branagh version, which I love absolutely. It's a masterpiece; even the stunt casting doesn't detract (though Billy Crystal comes close). I enjoy the Gibson version more than some do. It's certainly lesser, but I think Gibson is actually solid. I'm not a huge fan of Olivier's version; I'm too familiar with the play for the restructuring not to bug me and Olivier's a little too precious, I think. It's biggest strength is the atmosphere which is certainly gloomy and haunting.

    And a word for the Ethan Hawke version. I . . . really love this one actually. It's from 2000 and it's set in modern times, which I usually hate, but it just really works. The visual of the Ghost wandering the halls of the Denmark Corporation, a trench-coated figure captured on grainy security camera footage, is somehow really evocative. Kyle McLachlan is actually really good as Claudius. And I won't even spoil the "To be or not to be" speech; I'll just say it really captures the spirit of the age and fourteen years on from it, it just seems prescient. But I feel that the film on the whole uses technology in a really interesting way; there's always the sense of eavesdropping via electronics - during the Hamlet-Ophelia scene, Polonius is listening not by being hidden nearby, but because Ophelia's wearing a wire and the "play" Hamlet prepares isn't a play, but a short film. Bill Murray doesn't have enough to do as Polonius, but he's perfect casting actually. And try to spot Steve Zahn, Jeffrey Wright and Casey Affleck in tiny roles.

    There a ton more I want to see, of course. Check out this list of the 50 best Shakespearean film adaptations. Once upon a time, I had a vision of just watching all of these in order, but I never even started the project.
     
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  19. Juke Skywalker

    Juke Skywalker Force Ghost star 5

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    Mar 27, 2004
    In our "History of Theater in Western Culture class" we watched Roman Polanski's '71 version of Macbeth. It's been ages, but my memory of it is that it's very much a period piece through the filter of the Zeitgeist of early 70s cinema, if that makes any sense. I enjoyed it, I remember that. It also gets a +1 bonus roll for Francesca Annis, truly one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the screen.
     
  20. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Speaking of movie adaptations and disliking the Tempest, there was an interesting loose adaptation in the early 80s directed by Paul Mazursky, with a young Molly Ringwald in one of her first film parts. I haven't seen this movie in ages. I never see it anywhere. It's never on cable, can't find it on Netflix, etc. But I'd like to see it again.
     
  21. Penguinator

    Penguinator Former Mod star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    May 23, 2005
    I cannot wait to finally see Throne of Blood.

    Speaking of great adaptations by Kurosawa - no mention of Ran? It's Sengoku-era King Lear, and it's absolutely gorgeous. Not much carried over from Shakespeare, other than the plot, however.
     
  22. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Nov 2, 2000
    I mean to go see the Julie Taymor version with Helen Mirren as Prospero, but I didn't ever catch it. And Peter Greenaway did a loose adaptation (or something) called Prospero's Books with John Gielgud in the eighties. But it sounds . . . . really weird.

    I absolutely love Robert Browning's poem, Caliban Upon Setebos, in which Caliban muses on the characteristics of his god (surprise, surprise, Caliban's god is exactly like him).

    Ran is a Kurosawa I haven't seen. I really need to. I want to see Olivier's Lear too. I'm not a big fan of Olivier's Shakespearean works, but I saw some clips from this that make it appear that his performance is brilliant.
     
  23. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Mar 19, 1999
    Prospero's Books is creepy and off-putting like all the best of Greenaway's stuff.
     
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  24. Penguinator

    Penguinator Former Mod star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    May 23, 2005
    Can we all agree Branagh's bad at the comedies? Much Ado About Nothing is...not so great. Though Michael Keaton is perfect as Dogberry.

    I posted this elsewhere, but I also really couldn't stand Joss Whedon doing Much Ado About Nothing. Ugh.
     
  25. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    I enjoyed both Much Ados myself. Branagh's hand at the comedies is . . . well, I can see how it would be off putting. It's, um, very exuberant, to say the least.

    But this brings up scores. I actually really love Patrick Doyle's work on both Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet. I used to have both soundtracks.