What is your favorite Shakespeare film?
- billie0
- MindyB
- kcruver
- FreshFroggy
- billie0
- billie0
- mariaandrea
- billie0
- hakespeare
This archived discussion is "read only".
» MindyB - Re: Favorite film
In response to message posted by billie0:Omigosh, can a heart beat any faster or breath become more shallow than when listening to Lawerence Olivier as Hamlet speak, "O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and dissolve itself into a dew!... How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!"
Not that I'm in love with death, but I AM in love with the young, handsome Olivier (a/k/a Hamlet and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights - another miracle of a movie!). The old black and white Shakespeare films are my favorite - the deep shadows on the film are just perfect for the shadow meanings in Shakespeare's tragedies.
Actually, his sonnets are my favorite: "Things turn sour'st by their deeds/lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds!"
Can you HELP but LOVE the english language?!?!?!?!!!!!!? Hearing it spoken by an ideal englishman (back to Olivier!) doesn't hurt, either!!!
Thanks for this topic (Susan) and for your response (Billie). Makes my heart leap right out of my chest to have a chance to go look up and read some Shakespeare on a Wednesday afternoon!!
Oh, by the way, Billie, it was great to see the Scott Fitzgerald quote!!! I have loved that one for years, long before I read it in THE GREAT GATSBY. I grew up close to the church in Maryland where he and Zelda (also my first dog, a very wild and nutty dog I named after her)are buried. Every visit home from college I made the pilgrimage to their graves and made a rubbing (this quote is on the gravestone). I've had it framed in my house in all the years since and, as I've grown older, have drawn at least a dozen different meanings from it. Very cool!
-- posted by MindyB
» FreshFroggy - Romeo and Juliet
Hello.I would have to say that while I admire everyone's admiration of Olivier in Hamlet, I would have to say that my favorite Shakespeare adaptation on film is "Romeo and Juliet," by Baz Luhrmann. (Did I spell his name right?)
Here's why:
Obviously it is over the top, entirely non-classical, and definitely imperfect as far as the script of Romeo and Juliet goes, but that is part of what thrills me about the movie version of that play.
Luhrmann captures the intense tragedy of a boy and a girl who think that they know what love is, who are up against, not only the rivaling parents, whose ideology counteracts every move they make, but their friends's philosophies as well.
Mercutio's character is awesome. And the scene in which Leonardo's Romeo first lays an eye on the eye of Claire Daine's Juliet, is one of the perfectly amazing moments in film history. Do you know what scene I refer to? It's the one where they meet eye to eye through the aquarium.
I don't hold much truck with people who want Shakespeare to be historically accurate in its representations. I absolutely love that this modern, or post-modern adaptation allows us to feel, if not accurately see, the context that creates such a teenage love tragedy.
To me the film does what the play sometimes can't do in today's thinking. It shows how the tragedy wasn't the suicide, but the tearing apart of families, and the lunacy of someone so young loving someone else so young, without any idea what true love is.
At least, I mean, its a clear way to see that huge philosophical atmosphere of the Renaissance thorugh a pop culture lens. I still can't believe Luhrmann did it so precisely, yet so anachronistically.
Frog
-- posted by FreshFroggy
» billie0 - Re: Romeo and Juliet
In response to message posted by FreshFroggy:I agree that a lot of adaptations and updates of Shakespeare are wonderful. I haven't seen the entire film that you are speaking of (I hang my head in shame) but the parts I did see seemed to be done quite well.
Have you seen Love's Labour's Lost, the Branagh version? He turned it into a musical featuring the music of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and Jerome Kern. A lot of purists were outraged. I, on the other hand, found it a lot of fun.
Susan
-- posted by billie0
» billie0 - Re: Re: Favorite film
In response to message posted by MindyB:I still find Kenneth Branagh my ideal Hamlet. I was absolutely blown away with the film.
I'm glad you liked my Fitzgerald quote. It's been a favourite line of mine since I read the book. It is so fitting for life.
Susan
-- posted by billie0
» mariaandrea - Othello
One movie that surprised me was Othello starring Lawrence Fishburne. I was not expecting as much as say, Branagh as Hamlet
, but ended up really loving it.And welcome to the Suite Susan! It's nice to see you here.
-- posted by mariaandrea
» hakespeare - Twelfh Nigth
What do you think about this picture? It's my favorite. It has sense of humour, melancholy, drama... Just as the play itself! And the wonderfull photografy, with those autumn tones, and the music,... To me is exactly what an adaptation should be: respectful but with freedom, with joy!And of course the actors, what a privilege to get all these people together. To me it was the discovery of some of them, Steven Macintosh, Toby Stephen and, above all, Imogen Stubbs.
-- posted by hakespeare
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