Marlon Brando never played Hamlet. Apparently he didn’t want to do it until he was ready, and once that day came, he was too old to play the role. So now it’s in Johnny Depp’s head not to let the same thing happen to him. “And I would like to do it,” says Depp. “Although it’s one of the more frightening ideas I’ve had. I think as an actor it is good to feel the fear of failing miserably. I think you should take that risk. Fear is a necessary ingredient in everything I do.”

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare

Remember the story about a Macbeth starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jennifer Connelly? I’ve been trying to find news about that in IMDB or something, but nothing. Turns out it does indeed exist, and there’s actually another production of Macbeth going on as well. The competing version would see Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings) and Tilda Swinton (Chronicles of Narnia) in the lead roles, with Steven Soderbergh attached to produce and Luc Beeson possibly directing (says “involved”, and he’s directed The Fifth Element, but it doesn’t say he’s directing here).

Unfortunately the only actual item of interest on the Seymour version is that there is “no firm time table”. The story is mostly about this other version, and then a general back story about how many different Macbeths there’ve been.
Technorati Tags: macbeth, movies, Shakespeare

Everybody loved that video of the Beatles doing Pyramus and Thisbe. How about William Shatner doing a pretty funky rendition of Marc Antony’s “Friends, Romans, Countrymen…” speech? Halfway through it turns into a rap video. His take on “Let slip the dogs of war” is nothing compared to how his arch enemy General Chang did it in Star Trek VI.

Weird. It’s from Free Enterprise, which I’ve never seen.

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare, video

I like this article on “Enjoying La Belle Dame Sans Merci”, by John Keats. It’s here because of the nice reference to Shakespeare:

Keats praised Shakespeare’s “negative capability”. If I understand the passage correctly, he’s referring to the lack of unambiguous messages in Shakespeare’s works. Instead of preaching or moralizing, Shakespeare’s works mirror life, and let the reader take away his or her own conclusions.
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Hey, it turns out that people are indeed putting the sonnets to music. I am both pleased and disappointed to discover Rhythm of the Sonnets which puts 12 of them to music, but only offers Real Audio clips for download. So I have no idea if they’re any good or not. If the author’s listening, how about some MP3? If I can’t put it on my iPod, I’m not listening.

Technorati Tags: mp3, Shakespeare, sonnet