Month: May 2016

Which Movie Versions Best Adhere To The Text?

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

When my daughter was having trouble with the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet, I fired up the 1968 Zeffirelli movie version so she could follow along … and promptly discovered that, at least for the beginning, they’re not on book at all.  It’s entirely new language.  Maybe it gets better later? I forget.

So I swapped out for the 1996 Romeo+Juliet version which, although it cuts out the collier/choler/collar stuff, seems to say true to the text for the rest of the scene.  Then somebody told me that this version only retains about 40% of the original. I don’t know if that’s true, or if I even understand it — does that mean they flat out cut 60% of the play?  Or that they wrote new dialog? Because I haven’t really paid close attention to either of those possibilities, I’m usually too distracted by the direction and over acting.

I have the 1930something Norma Shearer / Lesley Howard version on DVD, but I haven’t watched it. I’m guessing that it’s probably pretty close, since back then they seemed more interested in sticking to the original intent, setting, costume and language than we do today. But I’d also suspect it’s edited way down, it doesn’t seem long enough to be even close.

So that’s my question.  Let’s say that a student wants to sit down with text in lap and watch a movie version, much like Amazon would have us do with our books by letting the audio version read it to us while we follow along on paper.

Which play, and which movie, would give the best results?  Obviously, Branagh’s full text Hamlet is the gold standard, and not eligible as an answer to this question.  I’m wondering about all the others.

You See? This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

“Meet the IRL Romeo and Juliet who met via Snapchat Story,” the headline promised. Now, you know I’m going to click on that.

  
I dare anybody to find a single shred of anything having to do with Romeo and Juliet in that story.  It’s pretty much just a standard “missed connection” playing out via Snapchat on some college campus somewhere.  No ancient grudge, nothing star crossed, no unhappy ending.  We’ve now reduced “Romeo and Juliet” to meaning “Oh, I hope those two get together.”  
He hasn’t even been to a party at her house yet.  I’m not sure when he’s even planning to kill her cousin, if at all!
I think the only thing we can take away from this story is that kids are making it to UW these days without understanding what Romeo and Juliet is about.

Geeklet Starts Romeo and Juliet. I Think.

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

My daughter was told that they’re starting Shakespeare something like three weeks ago. They did a week on Shakespeare’s life, a week on the sonnets, and almost a week on the prologue to Romeo and Juliet.

So at long last my daughter comes home from school today and flies directly at me.  “Daddy!” she yells excitedly, “We finally started Romeo and Juliet!”

“Great!” I say, “How did he end up approaching all that collier/choler/collar stuff?”

“We didn’t get that far.”

“As in, literally the first line. You didn’t get that far.”

“Well, we didn’t really start it.”

Turns out they started watching the movie.  The 1968 Zeffirelli version that everybody watches.

“Oh, so how far did you get in the movie?” I asked.

“The scene where Juliet’s mom is asking whether she wants to get married, and the nurse says a bunch of inappropriate stuff which we mostly didn’t understand.”

“And how did your teacher handle that?”

“He explained one of them, kind of, in a very roundabout way. I don’t even remember which one it is.”

“Here’s the thing about Romeo and Juliet,” I told her (for not the first time).  “If you start out by assuming that everything either Mercutio or the Nurse says is a dirty joke?  You’re probably right.  There’s a really good one in the beginning where, I think the Nurse is actually saying it was her husband that says this to a 13yr old girl, but it’s something about how she’s so klutzy she falls on her face, but when she’s older and knows better she’ll learn how to fall on her back.”

“THAT’S THE ONE!” my daughter said.

I tell you, this teacher and I are on the same wavelength. 🙂

The Jungle Hamlet

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I have just returned from Disney’s latest live action adaptation, The Jungle Book.

Rejoice, oh followers of the Lion-King-is-Hamlet cult!

It turns out that the Jungle Book is ALSO HAMLET!

Check it.

There’s this dude, right? And then his dad gets killed. So he goes off on adventure with his friends, but has to return to avenge his father.

Boom.  Frickin Hamlet, right there. QED.

I mean, sure, there’s bits of Hamlet that aren’t there, too.  Like a Polonius or an Iago or Fortinbras or Horatio, but they’re not in Lion King either. I thought that was the rules, that we just pick an arbitrary number of similarities, ignore the differences, and call it a day?

</sarcasm>

Sorry, had to be done. There’s a scene where the tiger literally sits on a “pride rock” and says, “Once the man cub learns what’s happened he’ll have no choice to but to return and take his vengeance,” or something like that, and I thought, “Pretty much the essence of Hamlet right there, if you want to split hairs about it.”

Every “Hero’s Journey” is not Hamlet, people.