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Post by j.s.p. on Apr 21, 2003 19:12:14 GMT -5
Hm....1940s Britain. There's a version of Richard III ('cause I know you like Shakespeare) set in 1940s Britian. Has Ian McKellan, Annette Benning, Robert Downy, Jr., and Kristen Scott Thomas.
=Jack
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Post by En on Apr 22, 2003 13:36:26 GMT -5
*resolves to watch that asap, because geez, what am I doing delaying watching something that's both Shakespeare and Ian McKellen?!*
Speaking of Shakespeare, Zefferelli's Hamlet and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet are on my list. Yes, those are the ones with Mel Gibson and Leonardo di Caprio. And yes, that means I respect Leonardo (if you've ever seen What's Eating Gilbert Grape? you would too). That Hamlet I liked because I liked the twist of character Gibson brought to it -- Hamlet qua very intelligent spazz who can't ever seem to do or say what he really wants to -- and that R&J I liked because the visual imagery was very strong, and tapped wonderfully into Catholic church symbolism; and because I thought that Claire Danes' Juliet was incredible. She had so much depth. I am so sick of Shakespeare's girls getting the "Oo, look at me, I'm in period costume" treatment.
Which leads me to the two reasons I can't completely hate Ethan Hawke's Hamlet: Bill Murray (nuff said) and Julia Stiles' portrayal of Ophelia as already deeply troubled. She contemplates suicide by drowning long before she actually does it, and that makes so much more sense than the "Oo, look at me, I'm suddenly wacko" take that Ophelia usually gets.
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Post by j.s.p. on Apr 23, 2003 1:07:57 GMT -5
Whoa. Hold on for a second. The only good thing about Hawke's Hamlet is Bill Murray's performance. It's great and, although I'm far from into Shakespeare, thought that it was quite nice.
Has anyone seen Olivier's Henry V? It's supposed to be this great movie, but I couldn't watch more that 30 minutes of it.
There's also a 1912 version of Richard III floating somewhere out there. If anybody knows how I can get ahold of this... or has seen it...
=Jack
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Post by En on Apr 23, 2003 11:09:58 GMT -5
Can I say something totally sacreligious?
I can't stand Olivier's Shakespeare stuff.
Lawrence of Arabia was fine, okay, good, but Olivier's Hamlet made me twitch. He was such a... a... dandy. Hamlet is confused, eloquent, complicated, a courtier, but also a student, angry, sad, lonely, loving, vengeful, doubtful -- but NEVER a dandy. It just made me yak to see Sir Lawrence standing on the battlements, holding a bodkin like a spoon and delivering the To Be or Not to Be as if he were the Scarlet Pimpernel's cover act.
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Post by j.s.p. on Apr 24, 2003 10:22:17 GMT -5
Sorry to break it to you, En, but Olivier wasn't in Lawrence of Arabia. That was Peter O'toole. And the movie ran about 3 hours too long.
Your description of Olivier reminded me of this Stanley Tucci movie, The Imposters. It isn't that great, but there's a character that is like that...a 'dandy' actor. Then these two guys insult him and a forced to stow-away on a ship. (I don't know, don't ask me.) If you ever have two hours with nothing else to do, you might enjoy it.
=Jack
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Post by En on Apr 24, 2003 10:57:27 GMT -5
You poop. I was going to edit that.
The thing is, I appreciated the Scarlet Pimpernel's cover identity being a fop, just like I appreciate Clark Kent being a klutz. But I did not appreciate Hamlet being a fop. It is not supported by the text
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Post by j.s.p. on Apr 24, 2003 11:28:21 GMT -5
I wonder...
As an artist, you really lose control of your work once you put it out in the public domain. I don't mean legally, but you lose the right to interperet the work the way you want. For example, say that an author means for hir work to be taken one way...but everyone takes it another way. Like Eminem, who says he's not homophobic and misogynistic, but people take his music to be that way. Who is right?
So I think that even if Shakespeare meant Hamlet as this certain character type, Olivier or whoever has the right to portray it any way they want.
(It is my personal belief, though, that they should at least try and get to the author's intent.)
(And sorry for jumping the gun. ;D )
=Jack
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Post by En on Apr 24, 2003 14:36:46 GMT -5
Well... as a member of a welfare capitalist state who doesn't necessarily think that is a bad idea... I agree in principle that Olivier had that right to interpret however he wanted to.
But it is our right as viewers to insist on a certain quality of interpretation -- to insist, for example, that screen actors develop their characters in ways that are meaningful in combination with the lines delivered and the direction of the film.
It is also my right, as a consumer of ShakespeareTM products, to refuse to buy cheap knock-offs and to tell my friends not to buy that crap, either
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Post by j.s.p. on Apr 24, 2003 16:02:00 GMT -5
...and that is how free enterprise works!
It always amuses me that people often overlook this form of censorship. In fact, this is the only form of censorship that I would even remotely endorse.
Problem is, a lot of people like Olivier. A lot. So that type of thing was produced. Look at the quality (no-quality) of many movies produced today. They are produced because people will see them, and my lack of spending $10 has little effect on the producers.
=Jack
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Post by En on Apr 24, 2003 16:13:32 GMT -5
All we can do is talk to each other about what we really want (good film) and what that is, and warn each other not to buy into bad films. "And if fifty people..." (Jack, you know the song Alice's Restaurant?)
It may seem that our "votes" don't count for much right now... but eventually the mass of people will get tired of being pandered to like that. The mass of people will get tired of worrying whether they are getting $10 worth of sex scenes and explosions. Another artist (director, actor, etc) will emerge who will challenge us. The show will go on.
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Post by kaoru on Apr 25, 2003 14:50:22 GMT -5
*slowly raises hand* This won't have much to do with Shakespeare movie versions but ah well. Or maybe it will.
The only movies I've seen which were adapted from a Shakespeare book were Midsummer Night's Dream with Calista Flockhart, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Everett, Kevin Kline etc etc, Romeo and Juliet, the Baz Luhrmann version, Much Ado About Nothing, I guess that's the title and this awful awful one with Kenneth Branagh and Mathew Lillard where they sang. Don't even ask me the title Oh and we have Hamlet with Mel Gibson but I've never seen it. My mother says it's good, but I'll have to see it with my own eyes to be able to judge it.
I won't go in deep critics with those titles I've said because I'm a lousy critic. I never see movies I don't like... when I do I always have two options: stop the tape or leave the theatre. BUT, I'll make an exception. En, I'm sorry, but I didn't like Romeo and Juliet that much. Not because of the actors, or the imagery, or anything like it. It's the story itself and the whole improbability of the thing that annoys me. The movie itself is good, I mean, it's an okay movie. I'll have to agree with you in what you said about Claire Danes' Juliet. Pretty good. But then again, I love to see Claire Danes. I loved Misummer Night's Dream - though I'm not sure if that's the way you spell it. I thought it was really cute and everything, so I won't say anything else about it. The other two... the musical was a fraud and the other was okay too, though I can't remember it very well for I only saw it once. A long time ago. I just remember it had Denzel Washington and Kenneth Brannagh and Emma Thompson. I just love Emma Thompson. Moving on.
When I said that about the improbability of the story... it's just impossible, in my point of view. I mean, it's wonderful for a man to have imagined that, and it's amazing how he wrote such pretty words and pretty sentences but COME ON! A man and a woman being that in love? Nah. I know that one thing about books is to allow you to give wings to your imagination, but I'm really critic when it comes to love and relationship issues so... yeah. And what annoyed me is how they set that story in a nowadays scenary, which makes the whole thing even more impossible, because nowadays, it's certain that people don't fall in love like that.
It'd be good if they did though. *sigh* I'll just turn a little off topic to say that nowadays love doesn't exist much anymore. It's all about *sorry* everyone eating everyone and leaving behind. That's why... "the luckiest man in the Earth is the one who finds true love" and not FFF-love. ((FFF is too rude, I won't explain here)).
Back into movies.
That quote up there ((the luckiest man etc etc )) is from a movie I bought last Wednesday and watched two times since then. Bram Stoker's Dracula, 1992, with Gary Oldman ( ;D), Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins and Keanu Reeves. Oh, and Sadie Frost, though she's not that important. Just because she's married to Jude Law doesn't mean she's a star. *ahem* The thing is, I just fell in love with the movie. I can't even explain how. And here I go again on how un-critic I can be, because if I went here and there I would've said "that movie sucks because it rarely follows the book". It's true. But, I dare say, the adaptation of the book turned into a much better story. Not better, prettier. Another thing about that movie is the photography. Wow. Just...wow. And then we have the amazing interpretations by Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins. As usual. Gary Oldman is one of those brilliant actors that no one speaks about but gets like "such preformance isn't possible" every time they see him on-screen. And it's true. I mean... he's the most metamorphosical (?) actor ever, yet he's brilliant in every single movie he's in. I just adore him. He'll make a hell of a Sirius, I can assure that. ((I mean, if they don't change his lines and cut of scenes and yada yada like they've been doing with all the HP movies)). All in all, I just love that movie.
And it's the first time this week that I type something that big. Sorry.
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Post by En on Apr 25, 2003 15:18:32 GMT -5
It's funny you should say that, Mina, because I was just ranting to Lumie a week ago about how annoyed I get when the director of a Romeo and Juliet concentrates on the "love story" part. Because those kids aren't in love, really -- they're just overwhelmed by falling in love. Puppy love. First love. And if you emphasize that part of it, the whole play turns into a pale shadow of Grease. It's like, if they made a remake of Godzilla in which they spend all their time talking about a relationship between two people, instead of the monster. Oh, whoops, they did do that
Because the point of the play, in my humble opinion, is that these two kids were about to have a nice, normal first love experience -- falling for each other, realising love is more than making pretty speeches, getting mad at each other, being jealous of each other's friends, yada yada -- but they didn't, because their families were fighting. The play isn't half so much about romantic love (or lust, or crushes, or whatever) as it is about family love, and family hate. Those two families are so stuck in a rut of hating each other and loving their own that the only thing that could break them out of it was losing their own because their kids loved each other.
But yeah, that's just me ranting on the fact that there are different kinds of love again, and about how for some stupid reason Hollywood thinks they should only talk about the romantic kind, when there are so many good stories about the family and other kinds
Which brings up the Trevor Nunn version of The Twelfth Night. If you can get that one, Mina, I'd love to know what you think about it; because instead of emphasizing the romances between Orsino and Viola and Sebastian and Olivia, it concentrates more on the brother-and-sister caring between Viola and Sebastian.
I liked that Kevin Kline Midsummer Night's Dream too. Except for Callista Flockheart -- she kind of irritates me. But I got a kick out of Kevin Kline as Bottom, because he does that "What, did I do something stupid" look so well ;D
Mm, I saw that Dracula, but I think I'd better watch it again without my friend Aaron, because he kept making weird comments all the way through it to make me laugh I'll get back to you on that.
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Post by j.s.p. on Apr 25, 2003 15:38:06 GMT -5
The best thing about that version of Dracula...even better than Gary Oldman's amazing performance...is that Tom Waits steals every seen he is in. And if I were to ever include celebrities as idols, Tom Waits would be at the top of the list.
I wonder...considering your theory, En, on the four romantic loves and the four stages in American history... perhaps the reason Hollywood is focusing so intently on the Romantic (Slytherin) type of love is that the stage of history we are in shows a significant lack of that sort of love? Like, people go to movies to get a sense of filling of what they are lacking in life. (Just an idea, I realize it's an underdeveloped argument.)
=Jack
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Post by En on Apr 25, 2003 15:46:33 GMT -5
Actually, according to my theory we are currently in a green period, in which people are very focused on the idea of how things relate to them personally -- whether a president is right for them, whether a relationship is good for them, whether they have enough money, they themselves. And Hollywood senses that, so they make movies about personal gain, personal wants, and personal relationships.
Not that this is bad, just that it's gone too far into green and needs to start shifting back toward the other values and loves. Like, it's time for people to remember that faith, family and charity are just as important to personal fulfillment as romantic love, personal wealth and achieving personal goals. So somebody is going to have to start reenvisioning plays like Romeo and Juliet as family stories, or making movies about looking for "faith" in a post-Enlightenment world, or stuff like that. Some are. I try to encourage them.
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Post by j.s.p. on Apr 26, 2003 16:05:46 GMT -5
I think that the recent trend in mind-messing movies is perhaps this look towards faith in the post-enlightenment...Matrix, Fight Club, Vanilla Sky, Donnie Darko, etc. etc. ... all these movies are about a realization and it effects their very way of being. And in most cases, the characters come out of it changed, but alright.
Hmm...do you have the urge to restage Romeo&Juliet?
(I don't)
=Jack
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