Shakespeare

[Karl Henning]

I don't know how much "lighter" it is, but as it arrived today: Olivier's Richard III.

And Martin Scorsese hosting discussion of the film's restoration. A friend (IRL) posted that King John is one of his favorite plays, so I'm watching. 

[Karl Henning]

And Martin Scorsese hosting discussion of the film's restoration. A friend (IRL) posted that King John is one of his favorite plays, so I'm watching.

I should never have guessed that King John would be the first of the Histories I watched. And now I've finished Henry V. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

I don't doubt usage of references to black or dark. The problem is the last step of linking that to a particular label and claiming that Claudius and Hamlet are somehow being portrayed as being a different race. Shakespeare knew how to depict a character as being a different race. He did it in other plays.

I Amazon-ordered the book and it arrived within days, so I'll want to see for myself. Whatever else, it's clearly a substantial work of scholarship, published by Cambridge University Press. See the review here: https://www.spenserreview.org/article/id/97/

The issue of Shakespeare and race is also discussed in Farah Karim-Cooper's recent (2023) "The Great White Bard: How to Love Shakespeare while Talking about Race." Karim-Cooper discusses other plays where race would seem to be a factor, like Antony and Cleopatra and The Tempest (Caliban: "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine").

[JBS]

I Amazon-ordered the book and it arrived within days, so I'll want to see for myself. Whatever else, it's clearly a substantial work of scholarship, published by Cambridge University Press. See the review here: https://www.spenserreview.org/article/id/97/

The issue of Shakespeare and race is also discussed in Farah Karim-Cooper's recent (2023) "The Great White Bard: How to Love Shakespeare while Talking about Race." Karim-Cooper discusses other plays where race would seem to be a factor, like Antony and Cleopatra and The Tempest (Caliban: "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine").

That review is a relative accurate assessment of Smith's book, although it simplifies some of his arguments (unavoidable I suppose in any review).

[Karl Henning]

I should never have guessed that King John would be the first of the Histories I watched. And now I've finished Henry V.

The "after-market benefit" of watching the RSC Henry V was even better context for listening to the commentary upon the Olivier film. Definitely the tack for Richard III.

[Karl Henning]

Officially treading terra incognita: Richard II with David Tennant.

[Karl Henning]

Officially treading terra incognita: Richard II with David Tennant.

... and here have I the daintiness of ear to hear time broke in a disordered string. But in the concord of my state and time I had not an ear to hear my true time broke. I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

[Karl Henning]

Officially treading terra incognita: Richard II with David Tennant.

I know I ought to continue the Henriad with Henry IV, but for now, I'll retreat to what I already know, with Richard III.

[Karl Henning]

Well, yesterday I watched Oliver Parker's Othello (1995) and the RSC staged production. Now, of course, I want to re-watch Orson Welles' version.

[Karl Henning]

Well, yesterday I watched Oliver Parker's Othello (1995) and the RSC staged production. Now, of course, I want to re-watch Orson Welles' version.

Some years had passed since I purchased and watched. It's truly a different order of experience of the play.

[Karl Henning]

Having revisited the 2006 film, As You Like It. 

[KevinP]

Earlier tonight.

[DaveF]

Earlier tonight.

Was that the whole film you saw, or just the trailer?  We went to see it yesterday and [plot-spoilers to come], despite all the critical acclaim, I found it to be drivel of the highest order.  Where to start... I know it's fictionalised, and a disclaimer at the end states as much, but the inaccuracies are nevertheless disturbing, especially as one suspects they are there for the purpose of manipulating one's feelings.  For example: Stratford appears to be one wet and muddy street, not the bustling town it must have been, and Shakespeare's London life is likewise presented as lonely and isolated, not the convivial one it undoubtedly was.  Dialogue veers uncomfortably between Elizabethan-lite (everyone says "I wish" rather than "I want") and contemporary ("OK", "yeah" and "right").  We are invited to believe that Shakespeare named his play after his deceased son rather than, as is much more likely, took his son's name from his Stratford friend Hamnet Sadler and coincidentally, 15 years later, reworked several existing "Hamlet" sources into his own play.

The gloomy, smoky interiors and unwashed appearance of the actors are pleasingly accurate, but are outnumbered by the anachronisms - printed handbills for the premiere of Hamlet, for example (although the billing of "Mr Jupe" as Hamlet is funny - and true).

Up to the point where Anne goes to London, the name "William Shakespeare" is never mentioned, and I found myself able to believe that the film was a sort of parallel to Monty Python's Life of Brian, about an unknown Stratford playwright who was just not quite as good as the real one.  But the London scenes scrape what hasn't already been scraped from the bottom of the emotional barrel: Will standing beside the Thames, wondering whether to throw himself in (do it, just do it) while extemporising "To be or not to be"; the Globe stage for the Hamlet premiere decorated as a forest (had someone told the stage crew it was Macbeth?), and, worst of all, Anne's tearful realisation that Will was not some neglectful boor who swanned (boom boom) off to London at the first opportunity, siring children on the way, but a deeply devoted father and husband.  All this and Max Richter too.

At the end we learn that most of the film was shot in Herefordshire, which is a Midland county about 50 miles from Warwickshire.  Still a lot closer, by several powers of 10, than this film is to a half-decent bit of cinema.

[Karl Henning]

Was that the whole film you saw, or just the trailer?  We went to see it yesterday and [plot-spoilers to come], despite all the critical acclaim, I found it to be drivel of the highest order.  Where to start... I know it's fictionalised, and a disclaimer at the end states as much, but the inaccuracies are nevertheless disturbing, especially as one suspects they are there for the purpose of manipulating one's feelings.  For example: Stratford appears to be one wet and muddy street, not the bustling town it must have been, and Shakespeare's London life is likewise presented as lonely and isolated, not the convivial one it undoubtedly was.  Dialogue veers uncomfortably between Elizabethan-lite (everyone says "I wish" rather than "I want") and contemporary ("OK", "yeah" and "right").  We are invited to believe that Shakespeare named his play after his deceased son rather than, as is much more likely, took his son's name from his Stratford friend Hamnet Sadler and coincidentally, 15 years later, reworked several existing "Hamlet" sources into his own play.

The gloomy, smoky interiors and unwashed appearance of the actors are pleasingly accurate, but are outnumbered by the anachronisms - printed handbills for the premiere of Hamlet, for example (although the billing of "Mr Jupe" as Hamlet is funny - and true).

Up to the point where Anne goes to London, the name "William Shakespeare" is never mentioned, and I found myself able to believe that the film was a sort of parallel to Monty Python's Life of Brian, about an unknown Stratford playwright who was just not quite as good as the real one.  But the London scenes scrape what hasn't already been scraped from the bottom of the emotional barrel: Will standing beside the Thames, wondering whether to throw himself in (do it, just do it) while extemporising "To be or not to be"; the Globe stage for the Hamlet premiere decorated as a forest (had someone told the stage crew it was Macbeth?), and, worst of all, Anne's tearful realisation that Will was not some neglectful boor who swanned (boom boom) off to London at the first opportunity, siring children on the way, but a deeply devoted father and husband.  All this and Max Richter too.

At the end we learn that most of the film was shot in Herefordshire, which is a Midland county about 50 miles from Warwickshire.  Still a lot closer, by several powers of 10, than this film is to a half-decent bit of cinema.

Thanks for taking one for the team!