Period updates are usually a bit stupid and obvious, but 10 Things I Hate About You is clearly a vast improvement on the original. It's a shame Welles never got his '1930s fascist' version of Caesar on film.
I've never seen any version of Hamlet as I don't want to have my reading experience diluted by it. So what's the best one - Olivier, Burton, Branagh or Gibson?
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 5 December 2002 01:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
Destroy: Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, as well as that other well known version of it from the 60's or 70's. Take the West Side Story too while you're at it. Will no one ever make an acceptable R&J?
― Dan I., Thursday, 5 December 2002 01:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Genevieve, Thursday, 5 December 2002 01:51 (twenty-one years ago) link
English lit teachers who can't teach are even deadlier to the enjoyment of Shakespeare.
Search: The 1930s-set version of Richard the Third.Destroy: The Mel Gibson Hamlet.
― j.lu (j.lu), Thursday, 5 December 2002 02:01 (twenty-one years ago) link
― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 5 December 2002 02:29 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Chris Barrus (xibalba), Thursday, 5 December 2002 02:36 (twenty-one years ago) link
I really don't like most film Shakespeare though. The actors tend to ponce around like, um, high school drama queens. That's why the updates are great, with the exception of Baz Luhrmann's halfassed job of non-update. It's not like I have a bar against the old language cos I can read it fine, it's that the actors...generally seem like they're being forced to do readings in Japanese. Very dramatic ones.
Henry V is pretty good though, the Ken Branaugh version and Much Ado About Nothing is at least watchable.
― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 5 December 2002 02:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
I haven't seen Olivier's Hamlet, but he did a great Richard III.
― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 5 December 2002 03:14 (twenty-one years ago) link
but, there is a silent 15 minute hamlet, from the 1920's??, that id love to see. to bad it is lost forever. anyone know any more about this??
― kephm, Thursday, 5 December 2002 03:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
there's a few seconds missing from the scene where john falstaff is recruiting soldiers to accompany him to war, but other than that it's supposed to be a decent transfer.
― bruice stringbean, Thursday, 5 December 2002 03:33 (twenty-one years ago) link
― call mr. lee (call mr. lee), Thursday, 5 December 2002 03:35 (twenty-one years ago) link
― jones (actual), Thursday, 5 December 2002 04:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
Does "My Own Private Idaho" count? (There's a good deal of dialogue paraphrased from Henry IV pts. 1 and 2.)
Destroy: the '30s version of A Midsummer Night's Dream with Mickey Rooney as Puck.
― Douglas, Thursday, 5 December 2002 05:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Leee (Leee), Thursday, 5 December 2002 06:11 (twenty-one years ago) link
Thanks for that, bruice. A bit pricey but it might be worth it. Welles's Macbeth is pretty classic too, just because Welles threw out half the text and filmed it on some really bizarre-looking sets, like one of those rubber boulder-covered planets on Star Trek or something.
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 5 December 2002 09:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 5 December 2002 09:29 (twenty-one years ago) link
Destroy Shakepearean comedies (just destroy them and leave me with the histories and tragedies)Destroy The Lion King
― Ed (dali), Thursday, 5 December 2002 09:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
I don't really care abt if shakespeare adaptations are anyway true to the source (and this Hamelet as far as i remember is very true to shakespeare) but it is one of my top film experiences ever.
I hope one day to see it again somewhere, as it still haunts me.
― dakatin, Thursday, 5 December 2002 09:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 5 December 2002 09:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/5051/hamasta.JPG
― dakatin, Thursday, 5 December 2002 10:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 5 December 2002 11:52 (twenty-one years ago) link
― RickyT (RickyT), Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:09 (twenty-one years ago) link
i like the baz luhrman, tho i think it loses a lot on video by being ensmallened
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:20 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Melissa W (Melissa W), Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:36 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:40 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 December 2002 13:05 (twenty-one years ago) link
Not alone. Ran does an amazing job with King Lear. One of my favorite film sequences ever is the one where all the shit breaks loose and the old father is dodging arrows, the concubines commit suicide, and there are fires everywhere...and for the duration of the whole sequence, you don't hear any sounds - just the score. Then, the first sound you hear after that is the sound of Taro getting shot. BRILLIANT!! Just brilliant. And the actress who played Lady Kaede...unbelievable. I read that the budget for the film was $12 million (all those costumes! all those soldiers! the sets!). I mean, good lord, that covers maybe the catering costs for a film nowadays.
You guys know that Strange Brew (with the McKenzie brothers) is kinda based on Hamlet, right?
― Ernest P. (ernestp), Thursday, 5 December 2002 14:16 (twenty-one years ago) link
Keith Chegwin as Fleance
The next rung up from extra and dogsbodyand all the clichés are true – days waiting forenough light, learning card games, penny-ante,while fog rolls off the sea, a cameragets moisture in its gate, and Roman Polanskicurses the day he chose Snowdonia.
He picked you for your hair to play this role:a look had reached Bootle from Altamontthat year. You wouldn’t say you sold your soulbut learned your line inside a beating tentby candlelight, the shingle dark as coalbehind each wave, and its slight restatement.
“A tale told by an idiot . . .” “Not your turn,but perhaps, with time and practice . . .”, the Pole starts.Who’s to say, behind the accent and that grin,what designs you had on playing a greater part?The crew get ready while the stars go in.You speak the words you’d written on your heart
just as the long-awaited sunrise firesthe sky a bluish pink. Who could have seenthis future in the late schedules, where Ican’t sleep, and watch your flight from the big screen;on the other side of drink and wondering why,the zany, household-name years in between?
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 5 December 2002 14:31 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 5 December 2002 14:34 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Mr Swygart (mrswygart), Thursday, 5 December 2002 14:39 (twenty-one years ago) link
― lol p xx, Thursday, 5 December 2002 14:43 (twenty-one years ago) link
(bad picture but the only one I can find)http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/8029/montagues.html
― Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:31 (twenty-one years ago) link
B-but it was only made in 1987! No wonder you found it so confusing. Watching films before they exist - c/d?
― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:37 (twenty-one years ago) link
― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:41 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:43 (twenty-one years ago) link
― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 December 2002 15:52 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 5 December 2002 16:10 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Thursday, 5 December 2002 16:25 (twenty-one years ago) link
http://207.198.124.134/ophelia.jpg
― Madchen (Madchen), Thursday, 5 December 2002 16:59 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 5 December 2002 17:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
http://www.simons-rock.edu/~alabra/oph/35.jpg
― dakatin, Thursday, 5 December 2002 17:37 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 5 December 2002 19:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
Predictably, I thought this said "Tits". Comedy bedlam may now ensue.
― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 5 December 2002 19:40 (twenty-one years ago) link
― kephm, Thursday, 5 December 2002 20:13 (twenty-one years ago) link
― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 5 December 2002 20:35 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Joe (Joe), Friday, 6 December 2002 00:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
Dakatin, what's your new name mean? I get sad when people don't return my emails; do you not answer to Erik anymore?
― Sean (Sean), Friday, 6 December 2002 00:59 (twenty-one years ago) link
Dan, do you read with your penis too?
― Leee (Leee), Friday, 6 December 2002 22:48 (twenty-one years ago) link
Hamlet - um, Branagh. although I like Olivier's calmness and Gibson's antics.
Gertrude - they're all bags! Except Glenn Close. And the one from Hawke's.
Claudius - Kyle MacLachlan was interesting, but nobody is Derek Jacobi.
Ophelia - [Insert nubile hot babe here.]
Fortinbras - Rufus Sewell, by default!!!1
Laertes - who?
various lords, attendants, maids and servants - Billy Crystal.
The Ghost - Paul Scofield, in Gibson's
Osric - am I alone in thinking Robin Williams was okay in that role? Just okay, mebbe, not atrocious.
Polonius - lots to choose from here: Ian Holm, Bill Murray. Tough to do on film, methinks.
did I miss anybody?
Note: I have not seen the Russian version alluded to, but I have seen the Russian Lear (translated by Pasternak), and that's probably as good as Lear will get on film, imho.
― weatheringdaleson, Sunday, 8 December 2002 09:25 (twenty-one years ago) link
― weatheringdaleson, Sunday, 8 December 2002 09:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
http://www.starkecounty.com/hamlet_statistics.gif
― erik, Sunday, 8 December 2002 09:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
ADDENDUM: Godard's Lear WAS atrocious. All that time wasted waiting for Woody as the Fool? Gaaaagh! Burgess Meredith was good, but, aieeeee, total monkey business.
― weatheringdaleson, Sunday, 8 December 2002 09:51 (twenty-one years ago) link
http://www.shakespearemag.com/images/lear1.jpg
― erik, Sunday, 8 December 2002 10:12 (twenty-one years ago) link
― weatheringdaleson, Sunday, 8 December 2002 10:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― B.Rad (Brad), Sunday, 8 December 2002 10:25 (twenty-one years ago) link
I like that phrase!
― erik, Sunday, 8 December 2002 10:51 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 07:14 (nineteen years ago) link
― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 07:59 (nineteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 08:10 (nineteen years ago) link
Welles' Othello is even better than Chimes at Midnight.
The best Hollywood Shakespeare is likely the Julius Caesar with James Mason, Gielgud and Brando.
The Branagh Much Ado About Nothing isn't bad, esp Denzel, Emma and Keanu.
The best Olivier film I've seen is Richard III. (major source for Johnny Rotten)
I really hate Greenaway's Prospero's Books.
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 13:29 (nineteen years ago) link
What's the verdict on Scotland, PA?
― What we want? Sex with T.V. stars! What you want? Ian Riese-Moraine! (Eastern Ma, Tuesday, 29 March 2005 17:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 18:18 (nineteen years ago) link
Total lurve for Branagh everything.
― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 29 March 2005 18:22 (nineteen years ago) link
Michael Almereyda, who made a splendid modern corporate Hamlet film w/ Ethan Hawke no less, has done Cymbeline in a biker-gang world.
http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/film-comment-selects-2015-cymbeline
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 4 March 2015 17:51 (nine years ago) link
I'd like to see Godard's King Lear and also Peter Brook's version from '71.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 4 March 2015 22:15 (nine years ago) link
10 Things I Hate About You is clearly a vast improvement on the original.
I like 10TIHAY. That said, in my opinion it's a close second to the Pickford-Fairbanks Taming of the Shrew (1929).
― Miss Anne Thrope (j.lu), Thursday, 5 March 2015 00:58 (nine years ago) link
Can anyone recommend a version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"?
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 5 March 2015 01:17 (nine years ago) link
have only seen the deHavilland-Cagney-Rooney one from the '30s, which is a mixed bag but worthwhile
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 5 March 2015 03:11 (nine years ago) link
I need to see that anyways, that's the one Kenneth Anger says he was a child actor in.
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 5 March 2015 03:43 (nine years ago) link
love Chimes at Midnight
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 5 March 2015 03:49 (nine years ago) link
I've still never seen any of Welles's Shakespeare films.
Titus rocks. The Shakespeare scholar at my university agrees. I like Olivier's Hamlet a lot too.
And, not to be a killjoy, but it looks like we have reached a point where Ten Things I Hate About You is officially Overrated. It's far from awful, but c'mon.
― That shit right there is precedented. (cryptosicko), Thursday, 5 March 2015 04:13 (nine years ago) link
Cymbeline gettin divisive press
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/cymbeline
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 16 March 2015 16:47 (nine years ago) link
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, March 4, 2015 5:15 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Paul Scofield is good in the Brook, but on the whole it's maybe a bit too chilly and spare (though it's been nearly 20 years since I saw it). def worth seeking out
― rob, Monday, 16 March 2015 17:13 (nine years ago) link
Thanks, I like the idea of Peter Brook but I've yet to explore either his Shakeapeare or stuff like "Marat/Sade"
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 17 March 2015 10:56 (nine years ago) link
Saw Godard's King Lear on its one week run in London at the old Cannon Swiss Centre cinema, back in the day. Only things I can remember about it are Woody Allen unexpectedly turning up (and having his speaking voice obscured on the soundtrack), Burgess Meredith (the quasi-Lear) saying, "Are you making a play for my daughter?" to the 'Shakespeare' character, and Godard wearing dreadlocks in his hair and playing 'Pluggy', "an eccentric professor obsessed with Xeroxing his own hand." (The whole wiki entry is worth a read - "The film earned $61,821 against an estimated budget of $2,000,000.") Now that Love Streams has been given the Criterion treament, maybe this will follow.
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Tuesday, 17 March 2015 12:11 (nine years ago) link
Ha, I (mis)read about this upthread and figured it had to be some joke post. (How could Molly Ringwald and Peter Sellers be in a movie together?
― Sir Lord Baltimora (Myonga Vön Bontee), Tuesday, 17 March 2015 17:21 (nine years ago) link
It's Peter Sellars the American theatre director, rather than Peter Sellers the English comic actor (who died in 1980).
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Tuesday, 17 March 2015 19:16 (nine years ago) link
Yeah, I read up on the facts after seeing the film's second mention upthread
― Sir Lord Baltimora (Myonga Vön Bontee), Tuesday, 17 March 2015 21:25 (nine years ago) link
Only things I can remember about it are Woody Allen unexpectedly turning up (and having his speaking voice obscured on the soundtrack)
Woody has got to talk about this someday. Hopefully he'll be doing so from jail
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 17 March 2015 22:52 (nine years ago) link
Almereyda's Cymbeline is pretty good! Hawke, Dakota Johnson, Ed Harris, Leguizamo, Delroy Lindo all fine.
― the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 29 May 2018 14:18 (six years ago) link
also Milla Jovovich sings Dylan's "Dark Eyes"
― the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 29 May 2018 14:19 (six years ago) link
Terrific production of KING LEAR on BBC4 last night. It's from 2018 I see.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Lear_(2018_film)
― the pinefox, Monday, 27 April 2020 09:14 (four years ago) link
Missed it, I should pay more attention to BBC4's schedules.
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Monday, 27 April 2020 09:55 (four years ago) link
it'll be on iplayer, i noted it was on but i was watching Wolf Hall at the time
― clap for content-providers (Noodle Vague), Monday, 27 April 2020 10:04 (four years ago) link
saw it on amazon prime last year, really fantastic
― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Monday, 27 April 2020 15:51 (four years ago) link
Yes!
I wish to watch all of WOLF HALL again soon.
― the pinefox, Monday, 27 April 2020 17:43 (four years ago) link
Was that BBC4 King Lear from 2018 the one with Anthony Hopkins?
― never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Monday, 27 April 2020 18:36 (four years ago) link
Yes.
Caught the end of it last night. The guys in military uniforms seemed a bit too obvious an update.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 27 April 2020 21:02 (four years ago) link
Thanks!
― never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 16:51 (four years ago) link