....and then there's this beauty from 1980. B A Robertson - To Be Or Not To Be - youtube - Bing video
Part of my mom’s family is from Stratford On Avon and goes back back to Will’s time. My fondness for Will goes beyond that link of course.
The Taming of the Shrew (1908 film) - Wikipedia The Taming of the Shrew is a 1908 silent film directed by D. W. Griffith. It was based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. The blurb for the film stated "if we could see ourselves as others see us what models we would become."
Lecctures on Shakespeare is finally out as an e-book (less to schlep around - even the paperback version is cumbersome). Essentially, a transcription of the lectures he delivered at The New School in New York City, more than anything else, it's an interesting look at Auden's literary taste and proliclivities. Amusing to flip through though it hardly ranks with Coleridge's, Samuel Johnson's or Mark Twain's critical work on The Bard, imo.
I've occasionally had some squeamish students in my class, and MacBeth is a particularly violent play, but in this year's Shakespeare survey, there's one student (who's been in many of my classes before and has always earned an A) who just cannot watch the movies. She spends the entire movie looking down at the text or with her hands shielding her eyes. I normally would have shown at least two filmed adaptations and compared and contrast them, but I felt so sorry for her I just couldn't, so we jumped into a couple of comedies.
Funny. Well, you don't actually see the murder of Duncan (as written, Mr. Polanski!) in Macbeth though the audience does see the ambush/murder of Banquo. It's the violence which is anticipated, contemplated and covered up (and subsequently perpetuated) that is the most frightening aspect of the play. The dread is what frightens children most though I'm not sure the younger ones understand Macbeth's wrangling over the psychic repurcussions of murder. Then again, we sometimes don't give children enough credit for correct evaluations of unusual human circumstances. Glad to hear that your students are getting a chance to see professional productions of the plays as opposed to dry classroom text introductions. Frankly, I wish everyone could experience the live version of plays initially, then come back to the texts for a better understanding of what they saw. Do you remember how you encountered your first Shakespeare play? For the life of me I can't! Feel like he's sort of always been there. Had to have been my stepmother's (who taught English) paperback tome of of Elizabethan lit. Hamlet, probably... Yep, the Norton Anthology, 4th Edition. Intimidating. Read Hamlet and I think that was it for years!
Great comments. I think it is great to see the play then read the text. I think it's important for people accessing Shakespeare to hear it rather than read it. I hadn't explored much Shakespeare for awhile then in my late 20s saw the Kenneth Brannagh Henry V. I then read the play twice. I do remember the first time I encountered Shakespeare. There are two incidents. My first encounter was grade 11 English. The teacher would read sections aloud and I got it. I had to memorise and recite a Paragraph(stanza?) from Macbeth. Then in Grade 12 I watched a modern telling of Macbeth. The background was 40s mobsters. It was great and I was locked in to the experience of plays and then Shakespeare.
Originally we were watching selecting scenes as we read through the play, with the plan that we'd then watch Polanski's and Goode's (with Patrick Stewart). She couldn't even handle seeing blood on swords and even the witches freaked her out. We did watch Polanski (she simply heard it and knew when to leave the room). There's a brief scene where we see baby MacDuff being 'umtimely ripped', and both movies have very convincing beheadings. Her eyes were averted for that, but the rest of the class squeamed. My first experience with Shakespeare was in my sophomore year of high school. I wasn't a good student at that point but drifted in and out depending on what we were reading. It was Julius Caesar. I perked up and liked it but didn't love it. The following year, however, was MacBeth and I was utterly captivated, enough for me to start reading some more plays on my own after I graduated. Later when I went to college (after five years in the School of Hard Knox), I took all the Shakespeare classes I could because the professor was really good.
Well, it's good you didn't screen Titus Andronicus. I didn't bother showing it to my squeamish wife, but I did show her the end soliloquy, which I always found very moving.
This should be pinned in the first post. Innumerable 20th century poets grew up listening to Shakespeare on records or tapes. In their parlance Elizabethans (Shakespeare's contemporaries) went to hear a play, not see it. It was a different approach to the Bard vs. today where the visuals are secondary to the language, which is why filmmakers can get away with so many miserable versions of the plays. Respects to Harold Bloom, the most celebrated contemporary Shakespearean scholar and critic. I didn't share his unabashed love of The Bard (or admire the glut of Shakespeare Bloom material in the market) but I'm glad he was with us as long as he was. R.I.P.
Oh, I'm grinning ear to ear about a small discovery: a steaming version (albeit, low definition) of the 1979 BBC version of Measure For Measure. It's probably my favorite in that series. Their King John and Henry VIII are close, though. A trailer (excerpt):
Me, putting the ham in Hamlet in yesterday's class. Bought the skull as an office decoration, but if you have a skull, and you're teaching Hamlet, how can you not bring it? (Funny point: looking at the photos the students sent, I can't help but realise how much more effective and dramatic it is that Branagh is looking up, above eye level, compared to me looking down. I'm not an actor at all, but that struck me.)
The film doesn't need your help though it's a cool photo. That version of Hamlet gives you the ham as the main dish! How cool to be able to do that in your class though.
My favorite sonnet is his No. 73, read (below) by the late, Sir John Gielgud: That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west; Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals all up in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the deathbed whereon it must expire, Consumed with that which it was nourished by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. Got a favorite? Post it!
Tony Hendra later did the great John Lennon parody for National Lampoon's Lemmings. I'm guessing this Shakespeare spoof played better in the writer's room
The Royal Company's film of Midsummer Night's Dream on the 11th. It'll be good to revisit this one after awhile.
