Shakespeare Fans discussion
Shakespeare And Movie Versions
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Sci Fi Hamlet...
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I don't personally get that channel (in Ontario), but I'll have to check for it online. You've grabbed my interest, and after watching the Kenneth Branagh version several times, I think I can handle the length :)Thanks!
Was the Branagh one in 19th cent dress and big sets?Think this one is in modern suits etc and confined to theatre sets/dimensions.
Anyone see it live?
Mod
As I write this it is being broadcast, and Hamlet is looking at Yorick's skull ....
It is brilliant ...
Must get back to watching ...
At work...recording it...will wallow in it next week.
Ack! I do not get BBC2 here. can't wait, but guess I must.
Martin wrote: "As I write this it is being broadcast, and Hamlet is looking at Yorick's skull ....
It is brilliant ...
Must get back to watching ..."
How was it?
Very impressive. David Tennant is an unprincely Hamlet, with boyish but true emotions in the sinister world of spies and CCTV cameras of a techno-modern Elsinore with 1950s costumes. Through II.ii he wears one of those ribcage T-shirts. Patrick Stewart is both ghost and King: he looks scarcely older than when he did the King to Derek Jacobi's Hamlet 30 years ago. Oliver Ford Davies as Polonius is tedious to perfection, stopping short of senility. Laertes is more "princely" than Hamlet, with the princeliness of a dim Windsor. Certain details perfect for once: for example, Hamlet is the hopeless actor of the Pyrrhus speech, which the player takes over and turns into theatrical magic. A long version (3 hours or so), but still with cuts unfortunately. The cuts a little unusual: for example no love poem to Ophelia ("doubt thou the stars ..."), --- unless I was asleep at the time. In II.ii, one but not both of the F sections not in Q restored (sorry that's a bit obscure). But the length plus cuts allows an agreeable pacing in which the text is delivered at an easily-undestood speed.
We recorded it last night (unfortunately losing most of the opening scene), but I was only able to see a few minutes then. Today I've watched the first half. I think it may be the best Hamlet I've seen.
It's nice for us Brits to be one step ahead of the Americans for once, but presumably you can see it on BBC iplayer? And three hours of TV uninterrupted by a single ad., can you imagine that?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/hamlet/character...
Martin wrote: "In II.ii, one but not both of the F sections not in Q restored..."Eh? What?
Bits edited from 1st folio for the quarto print? Don't know the differences well enough...major stuff or wee bits and pieces?
I realise that during Bill's time they were organic works, lengths being changed to fit venues etc. The big Norton Complete has 2 versions side by side if memory serves.
Barbarossa, I'll explain the whole thing if you promise to join the Cymbeline read!
** wink **
Arghhh...I'll probably be away from computers for Jan and Feb, and likely to have little time for indulging in the bard...
Will join any read post Feb though.
Out of curiosity, what text do you use? I settled on the RSC Complete after pondering between it and the Norton. Realise that there may be slight differences between what folk are reading...just wee ones hopefully though.
But as I said, it'll be back on a shelf for a couple of months...work and stuff.
no iPlayer download available in the US yet--we can download the audio though.
I just have a pile of different texts lying about, Barbarossa. I do have the Arden Hamlet, edited by Jenkins.Watching to completion, I am now a bit dismayed by the cuts. (I want a full 4 hour version!) And I felt that Hamlet wants a certain princely dignity.
It will be interesting to get other reactions.
I watched this on BBC IPlayer, absolutely riveted. Then I downloaded it but forgot to watch again and when I finally got round to settling myself in with the whiskey and low lights it had been automatically deleted. What a bummer. It was the best production I've ever seen. All schoolkids should be forced to watch it. Well, perhaps not, but I'm sure they'd love it not only for the humour, updated elements like CCTV tracking, Dr Who as the lead (I couldn't stand Tennant until I watched this and saw hidden talents), and Capt Picard of course, but just for the extraordinary way in which Shakespeare's language is not a bit outdated and his themes completely timeless. I especially liked the gravedigger's humour which is often missed, and Polonius's advice to his son. All the characters are a revelation in this production, and I felt like I was seeing this play for the first time, incredibly fresh. If you're outside the orbit of the BBC you can find scenes on youtube I think.
Martin wrote: "Barbarossa, I'll explain the whole thing if you promise to join the Cymbeline read!
** wink **"
OK, I missed Cymbeline but joining H6-1...any chance of shedding some light on "In II.ii, one but not both of the F sections not in Q restored..."?
Barbarossa, you have a long memory for debts!Okay. Hamlet was printed as a single play in S's lifetime, the Q2 text, and in the folio collection after his death, the F text. (Many, though not most, of the plays had this double history.) Apart from other differences, there are bits of Q2 not in F and bits of F not in Q2. I used to imagine S reworked the play, cutting some parts out, adding others in, but apparently that is not the case: the printing omissions look like cuts (often they leave clumsy boundaries), and suggest the original play was surprisingly long. The omissions in Q2 are two big cuts, preserved in F. One is the Denmark-is-a-prison section, the other the boy-actors section, in Hamlet's wandering conversation with Ros & Guil in 2.2. Since the cuts are, in a sense, arbitrary, there is no compelling reason to follow them in a modern production. Anyway, as I said, the BBC version included one (the former) and omitted the other.
Martin wrote: "Barbarossa, you have a long memory for debts!"Scotsman living up to the stereotype...
So is the Q2 Bill's "directors cut"? As he wanted it? Or was it a pirated copy of the play that he had nothing to do with? Is there an "ur-text" reconstructed by scholars that compiles the F and Q2?
As they were living plays that changed over time can we really answer this?
Hey, Barbarossa, I see you're getting interested in this stuff!All your questions are hard to answer, and I don't have any answers. Jenkins in the Arden Shakespeare runs through the theories and the state of current knowledge. Here's the quick rundown,
Before Q2 there was Q1, definitely pirated, although it took a long time before that was fully understood (about 150-200 years). Q2 may have been released as an answer to Q1. The F/Q2 differences have been explained by supposing that Q2 comes from a MS of Shakespeare's, and F from a fair copy adapted for theatrical use. This goes back to the "foul papers" "prompt book" distinction, which comes (I think) from the scholar W.W. Greg, accepted as gospel for decades, but now back in the melting pot. Even so, the distinction seems to work. F saves on characters in the cast. Do you recall Horatio announcing Ophelia's madness to the Queen in the "Dr Who" version? A rather odd funtion for Horatio if you think about it. This derives from F, and in Q2 it is just "a Gentleman". So perhaps F is for real stage use, Q2 closer to the poet's invention.
Most modern editions run F and Q2 together in some way.
It's funny you mention an ur-text, since there is also an ur-Hamlet. There is a reference to the play in the margins of a book of a guy called Hervey that's a bit too early, which has led people to invent the idea of an earlier play called Hamlet, by S or even perhaps by someone else ... but I think all that is best ignored.
(The article on ur-Hamlet in Wikipedia contains serious errors.)
What I find is that too much of this scholarship takes you down a road of doubt and confusion, which is dispelled only by reading the text itself. And actually, a lot of Shakespearean scholarship is really pretty bad. Hence my reaction against the authorship doubts of Henry 6.
Thanks for that. I personally don't mind who wrote the plays, I think the value as entertainment is more important than quibbling over authorship. The idea of the text as a changing entity in itself though I find very interesting, like the evolution of any tale whether myth or urban legend. The fact that works of "the bard" seem to have been in states of flux rather than set in stone, as I was led to believe by teachers, is as interesting to me as the many versions of the Arthur tales.
Barb, you are a wise man.By the way, tell me truthfully, do you have a red beard?
Wise? Pish! I'm haiverin' keech most of the time...The face furniture has seen better days, somewhat snowy these days...in ye olden days it was like an explosion in a copper wire factory.
O! that all my sullied flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew! ... I just have no idea when in my God forsaken third world country I'll be able to watch this, I'm just getting shivers up my spine as I watch the clips on youtube :/ any idea if a DVD will come up?update: nevermind found it in Barnes and Noble, I'll have it sent here next month! Can't wait though!
And now Picard is in "the Scottish play" on bbc4 this festive season. Looks like it's Stalinist in setting.
I must say, I neither liked nor enjoyed this production with David Tenant. Frankly, the acting was rather immature, and the only person who stood out for good performance was Patrick Stewart.
The '08 one with Dr Who and Jean-Luc Picard. It's a 3 hour version, and by all accounts damn good...though a crony that saw the actual event said it was a "bum numbing" 3 hours, but I'd imagine it's more comfy in your own sitting room.
Do those in the former colonies have access to BBC2? Must be able to get it online...I get it through Sky, but I can't get it online in the wilds of Connaught.