Month: December 2010

Here’s another idea that came out of the comments. In the latest Tempest movie by Julie Taymor, Caliban is black. What do you think that choice says about the Tempest as allegory for colonialism? (That’s not a direct quote, so if Charlene wants to reword her original question, kindly do so). The larger question to me is, what do you look at when you see a Shakespeare production? Do you look for “meta” things like this that speak to the director’s vision?
Here’s my thoughts : As a general rule? I don’t care about that stuff. At all. I go into every production (and really, a good movie as well) thinking of it as a parallel universe into which I get a front row seat. I assume that the people are real. I don’t get to ask why Caliban is black in this one any more than I get to ask when I’m 5’7″. I just am. Caliban is just black in this universe. No biggie.
Know what I mean? This was always one of the reasons I was concerned for teaching Shakespeare (back to that topic). I follow the homework boards and always cringe when I see questions about how Shakespeare sets the mood or what he uses to symbolize something or why he uses one literary device over another. I’m sure that these are important to understand, but I think that forever living in that space means that you never climb inside the universe he creates, either. It’s impossible to do both, you cannot immerse yourself in the experience of two characters, you cannot simultaneously think “Ophelia said” and “Shakespeare had Ophelia say”.
Apparently, in The Godfather movies (or maybe just the first one), there are oranges in every scene where somebody dies. That’s certtainly one of these “meta” things we’re talking about. I couldn’t go through all the bad things in my life and say “Hey, wait a second, somebody was always wearing purple!” What I’m wondering is, does knowing this or not knowing this alter your understanding and/or appreciation of the movie? It has a certain degree of interest, sure. It shows up in the “Trivia” bits for the movie. But unless you are a student of film making, is it important for you to know this?

In another thread, JM wrote “I’d have to “somewhat” disagree, Charlene, since I believe Hamlet to BE Shakespeare. But that’s another topic altogether. 🙂 “
Continue. 🙂

Kicking this up to the top level and out of the comments so people can join in.
The topic is Improvising in Shakespeare’s work. Or, more generally, let’s call it “going off script”, since it doesn’t have to be extemporaneous for our purposes. We’re talking about when actors, in between their Shakespeare lines, add the occasional words of their own devising.
Thoughts?
I have two thoughts on the subject. First, on the subject of “Do we think that Shakespeare’s actors improvised?” I answer, “Shakespeare’s not here anymore to defend himself.” So I have to assume that, when it was live, he had least had the option of going up to an actor afterwards and saying “That was good, keep it” or “Well, that ruined the show, thanks a lot. Don’t do it again.” Who really knows if the plays were the same night after night? Shakespeare could have constantly been revising. So while the Works as we’ve come to know them are like Scripture to us, we almost certainly hold the source material in a much higher regard than the creator did.
Second, I think there is an important distinction between a director saying “Ok, in my vision of the play, I’m going to have you do the following….” versus an actor just deciding to say something funny. I’ve actually just remembered a good example – during the Commonwealth production of Shrew in Boston several years back, I can’t remember why exactly but there’s a chase scene – some servant who has impersonated someone is now being chased by that man’s bodyguards – anyway, he jumps off the stage and into the audience, turns back to the stage (where the bodyguards are approaching), puts his arms up and yells “Wait!! Fourth Wall!” They pause, confused, just long enough for him to head for the hills, before they too jump down and pursue.
I don’t recall at the time being pissed off that the director had thrown this in. I remember thinking it was very funny. It was a directorial decision, and showed some purpose.
Now instead compare a hypothetical scene from Macbeth, at the dinner party before Banquo’s ghost makes his appearance. The seated guests are all no doubt socializing and talking amongst themselves, and then one of them pipes up loud enough for the audience to hear, “Rectum? Damn near killed him!” and everybody has a big guffaw.
I think I’d be upset about that.
Are my feelings on the subject arbitrary? I honestly don’t know. Could be. Could entirely be in the hands of the particular director or actor. If I get the feeling that the director and/or actors have love and respect for the material and are merely trying, in their own way, to present it in the best possible way? I like that. If on the other hand it seems to me like they’ve taken the “We need to make this better” approach, then I have a problem with that. And I do realize that this is entirely opinion – Julie Taymor could have nothing but the utmost respect for Shakespeare’s work, and this is simply her way of expressing it. I have no idea.

Ok, learn something new every day. You know that scene in J.R.R Tolkien’s The Two Towers, when the giant tree-creatures known as Ents march on Saruman’s tower? Remind anybody of a certain Scottish play? Coincidence, you say?

Maybe not. From Tolkien’s letter #163 to W.H. Auden:

Take the Ents, for instance. I did not consciously invent them at all. The chapter called ‘Treebeard’, from Treebeard’s first remark on p. 66, was written off more or less as it stands, with an effect on my self (except for labour pains) almost like reading someone else’s work. And I like Ents now because they do not seem to have anything to do with me. I daresay something had been going on in the ‘unconscious’ for some time, and that accounts for my feeling throughout, especially when stuck, that I was not inventing but reporting (imperfectly) and had at times to wait till ‘what really happened’ came through. But looking back analytically I should say that Ents are composed of philology, literature, and life. They owe their name to the eald enta geweorc of Anglo-Saxon, and their connexion with stone. Their part in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of ‘Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill’: I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war. And into this has crept a mere piece of experience, the difference of the ‘male’ and ‘female’ attitude to wild things, the difference between unpossessive love and gardening.

(Emphasis mine.)

There you go – straight from Tolkien’s mouth. Or, pen. I’d provide a link, but unfortunately this comes from a PDF document that I received through …. ummm…..unlinkable means.

You have to admit, though – if we want to pit modern movie special effects against Shakespeare’s ability to paint a picture with words….the march of the Ents still rocks.

UPDATED: Found a link, here.