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Apr. 13th, 2003
Gratuitous Hamlet post
Apr. 13th, 2003 02:01 amGacked from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bonibaru
You absolutely love Hamlet and/or Shakespeare. You
like the play enough to know what, when, why,
and where things happen. You might even have
the play memorized.
How well do you know Hamlet?
brought to you by Quizilla
I absolutely love Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet. There is a certain amount of self-indulgence, but the color scheme and the sheer opulence are fantastic. And I admit it freely, I like the flamboyant way Branagh acts.
I like the Mel Gibson one, too, although clearly Mad Mel and Gertrud didn't look like mother and son (they looked about 10 years apart, which might well be the actual age difference between the actors). The Zefirelli-Hamlet also suffered from an excess of Oedipussing, the bed-scene between Hamlet and Gertrud was so over the top, my husband and I burst out laughing in the theatre (annoying the rest of the audience and heaping a lot of bad karma on our shoulders).
But the setting was nice and Mel was surprisingly good as the nutty Dane.
My favorite Hamlet is Russian. A black-and-white production by Grigori Kosintsev. It won a prize in Canne during the late fifties if I remember correctly. An amazing film that utilizes realistic sets, but then contrasts them with Elizabethan costumes (Claudius looks like Henry VIII and Horatio like Martin Luther, Ophelia looks like a wind-up ballerina).
Hamlet is played by Innokenti Smoktonovski. I googled him but couldn't find a single picture of him. Too bad. He was quite amazing, even subtitled or dubbed.
Kosintsev's film focuses on the political situation in Elsinore. Exacting revenge on the king is finally seen as the tactical problem it is, Claudius is always surrounded by courtiers and Hamlet is constantly watched by members of the court for signs of ambition. Kosintsev does a great job contrasting the public with the private.
Lawrence Olivier's Hamlet is often admired. Personally I thought Olivier was too impish and gave off a distracting hero-in-tights vibe but I did like the architecture of Elsinore. Also, there's the focus on the Oedipus theme, which I consider less central to the play.
I like watching or reading different versions of the same story. It always makes me very much aware of just how many choices are required in telling a story.
bonibaruYou absolutely love Hamlet and/or Shakespeare. You
like the play enough to know what, when, why,
and where things happen. You might even have
the play memorized.
How well do you know Hamlet?
brought to you by Quizilla
I absolutely love Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet. There is a certain amount of self-indulgence, but the color scheme and the sheer opulence are fantastic. And I admit it freely, I like the flamboyant way Branagh acts.
I like the Mel Gibson one, too, although clearly Mad Mel and Gertrud didn't look like mother and son (they looked about 10 years apart, which might well be the actual age difference between the actors). The Zefirelli-Hamlet also suffered from an excess of Oedipussing, the bed-scene between Hamlet and Gertrud was so over the top, my husband and I burst out laughing in the theatre (annoying the rest of the audience and heaping a lot of bad karma on our shoulders).
But the setting was nice and Mel was surprisingly good as the nutty Dane.
My favorite Hamlet is Russian. A black-and-white production by Grigori Kosintsev. It won a prize in Canne during the late fifties if I remember correctly. An amazing film that utilizes realistic sets, but then contrasts them with Elizabethan costumes (Claudius looks like Henry VIII and Horatio like Martin Luther, Ophelia looks like a wind-up ballerina).
Hamlet is played by Innokenti Smoktonovski. I googled him but couldn't find a single picture of him. Too bad. He was quite amazing, even subtitled or dubbed.
Kosintsev's film focuses on the political situation in Elsinore. Exacting revenge on the king is finally seen as the tactical problem it is, Claudius is always surrounded by courtiers and Hamlet is constantly watched by members of the court for signs of ambition. Kosintsev does a great job contrasting the public with the private.
Lawrence Olivier's Hamlet is often admired. Personally I thought Olivier was too impish and gave off a distracting hero-in-tights vibe but I did like the architecture of Elsinore. Also, there's the focus on the Oedipus theme, which I consider less central to the play.
I like watching or reading different versions of the same story. It always makes me very much aware of just how many choices are required in telling a story.
Gratuitous whine
Apr. 13th, 2003 02:06 pmI feel a strang mixture of happiness and exasperation. I've been following eliade's ongoing S/X story/outline/collage/sketchbook for the past few days and enjoying it very much. So good. I am green with envy. The way Anna spells out some things and remains cryptic and distant in other instances is compelling. Great story-telling. And never pretentious. I feel like I've learned a lot about writing simply by reading her stories. *Sigh*
The trouble is that some scenes and thoughts are starting to look very much like things I had planned for my Pandoraverse series. It's totally paralyzing.
I had a similar thing with Perdition, reading a story in anothe LJ that was incredibly close in tone and build-up to what I had planned for the next chapter. Hence the stucker than stuck-ness.
We have a whole boat-load of visitors coming in a few minutes. So, no writing today either. Maybe tonight. Keep your fingers crossed. Has anyone else noted how busy RL-phases coincide with creative moments? I always enter the writing-zone five minutes before visitors are due.
eliade's ongoing S/X story/outline/collage/sketchbook for the past few days and enjoying it very much. So good. I am green with envy. The way Anna spells out some things and remains cryptic and distant in other instances is compelling. Great story-telling. And never pretentious. I feel like I've learned a lot about writing simply by reading her stories. *Sigh*The trouble is that some scenes and thoughts are starting to look very much like things I had planned for my Pandoraverse series. It's totally paralyzing.
I had a similar thing with Perdition, reading a story in anothe LJ that was incredibly close in tone and build-up to what I had planned for the next chapter. Hence the stucker than stuck-ness.
We have a whole boat-load of visitors coming in a few minutes. So, no writing today either. Maybe tonight. Keep your fingers crossed. Has anyone else noted how busy RL-phases coincide with creative moments? I always enter the writing-zone five minutes before visitors are due.