Happened to hear something on NPR last night that is probably one of those, “Oh sure, everybody knows that” things, but I’m pretty sure we’ve never actually discussed it here on the blog.

Desdemona, early in the play, talking about a daughter’s obligation to her father:

DESDEMONA 

My noble father,
I do perceive here a divided duty:
To you I am bound for life and education;
My life and education both do learn me
How to respect you; you are the lord of duty;
I am hitherto your daughter: but here’s my husband,
And so much duty as my mother show’d
To you, preferring you before her father,
So much I challenge that I may profess
Due to the Moor my lord.

You know what I’m going to put it up against, right?  Cordelia, early in the play, talking about a daughter’s obligation to her father:

CORDELIA 

Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me: I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty:
Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.

I’d never noticed how nearly identical those two speeches are.  (As the NPR host noted, Othello productions are often so focused on the Iago/Othello relationship that Desdemona comes across as a “nothing” character, and I think I’ve typically felt the same way.  And only now that I write it do I realize the irony in putting a “nothing” character up against Cordelia :))

I actually think that Desdemona scores a stronger point with “I’m only doing the exact same thing that Mom did when she married you.”

Maggie Smith as Desdemona to Sir Laurence Olivier’s Othello

Have there been other echoes of this passage in his other, even earlier works? There’s nobody really to give that speech in Macbeth or Hamlet, and I think it speaks volumes that Juliet is not in a position to deliver such a speech in her play.  What about the comedies? Neither Beatrice, Rosalind or Viola have a father figure to rebel against. I suppose Hermia might have had a shot at it, but she has to deal directly with Theseus, which isn’t really a fair comparison.

Have I  missed anybody?

Ok, so, fine, somebody managed to make a list of Shakespeare adaptations I’ve never seen.  We get back into the comfort zone with this list of Teen Shakespeare Adaptations, supposedly “ranked”, which really just means the arbitrary personal opinion of whoever made the list, based on which ones they’ve actually seen rather than just spotted a YouTube trailer.

All the standards are here – 10 Things I Hate About You, She’s The Man, Get Over It, etc…  They include Romeo+Juliet which always makes me on my soapbox about, “What did you mean by adaptation? Because some of these are original text and some of them are just storyline similar.”

Who knew that Nicholas Cage’s 1983 “Valley Girl” was a Shakespeare adaptation? I remember staying up late to watch that one on Cinemax back when cable television was new.  Now I may have to go back and watch it again since I never made the connection.  The wikipedia page tells me there’s at least some similarly beyond the “star-crossed lovers” bit, as Cage’s “R”andy meets “Julie” when he crashes a party at her house. Does that mean that “T”ommy is supposed to be the Tybalt character? Because somebody may need to read the play again, as he’s Juliet’s cousin, not her boyfriend.

Oh, and I also recall there being a reasonable amount of gratuitous nudity, which I now realize must have been an homage to Zeffirelli’s 1968 version.

It’s rare that we see a list of “Shakespeare Stuff You Didn’t Know” and we don’t already actually know most of it.  So I was pleasantly surprised to find this list of Shakespeare Adaptations You Haven’t Seen and, honestly, I haven’t seen any of them.  I’ve *heard* of several of them – Ran being the most obvious example – but I can’t say I’ve ever watched that one through from start to finish, only seen clips.

But then again I’m not the one who runs a “Shakespeare and film microblog”.  Luckily, I know who does.

Putting you on the spot here Bardfilm!  How many have you seen?