Contradicting Popular Opinion
A.K.A.
An Enquiry Concerning Shakespeare
Intro
First, a couple of pimps.
Rob looks at one of my favorite movies. It’s name may be a twisted reference to Hamlet, but I could never confirm that thing.
Sara is still playing by the rules.
Mark B. REVIEWS WCW THUNDER!!! boldly going where few dare to tread.
My prospects for this week’s column kinda fizzled. I finally got around to seeing Big Fish, and it didn’t suck as much I had thought. Damn you Albert Finney and your charm! The film admitted that it didn’t make any damn sense, so I was able to forgive it that thing. And I can only write, “Hey Burton, before Camera and Action, tradition dictates that you say LIGHTS!” Damnit! I first saw Batman at the drive in. It was the first show of the night. That means that I couldn’t see a damned thing for the first 40 minutes of the picture.
Anyways, the other big news of the week are the Oscar nominations. Sadly though, it is just another boring year for them too. No Cronenberg nomination = Unhappy Kennedy. I’ll root for Willaim Hurt as supporting actor as a sort of proxy. Although, I have a sneaking suspicion that the award is going to pig-vomit for ignoring his performances in Sideways and American Splendor. Such is the twisted world of the Academy.
Here I was hoping that Mickey Rourke would get a supporting actor nomination for Sin City. Ah well. That’s how things go. I thought Flair had a chance of winning the Rumble. I used to predicting poorly.
At any rate, neither of those topics makes a full column, so f*ck it.
I’m talking Shakespeare.
Concerning the last 107 years, William Shakespeare has 631 writing credits on IMDB.com. This is all despite the noteable handicap of being dead for the last 390 years.
But so it goes.
Traditionally, Americans love movies and Americans love Shakespeare. It makes sense to put them together. Now, some of you might protest that Americans love Shakespeare.
Of course, you’d be wrong about that thing. I, as usual, would be right. Such is the nature of the beast.
Traditionally, Americans love Shakespeare, and not just pompous hoity-toity egghead intellectuals either. Proof? Berkeley Professor Lawrence Levine cites him as the most popular playwright among all classes from the mid 18th till the late 19th century.(Shenkman, 1991) Bigger than the f*cking Beatles.
You might just say that said proof is merely an “appeal to authority” that proves nothing.
First, I would criticize your sloven manner of dress. Second I would point you to the Astor Place Riot of 1849. You see, 10,000 people went nuts in the Astor Place theater resulting in at least 22 deaths, 86 arrests, and over 150 injured. The cause of the riot?
A dispute over how MacBeth should be played. (Shenkman, 1991)
I don’t make this shit up. That’s passion right there.
Popular opinion seems to embrace the notion that Shakespeare is something for the pompous eggheads. It isn’t completely backwards. There are a number of pompous eggheads who hold Shakespeare up on a pedestal, and protest something as minor as the period change of Branaugh’s Hamlet. You know, the Uber-purists. They’re basically a more thoroughly groomed version of the fanboys who are still bitching that Sam Raimi’s Spider-man has, GASP!, organic web-shooters.
BUT, the really pompous eggheads dislike Shakespeare. He was a popular artist. He wrote for the masses. He wasn’t afraid to be gory. He’s like the Steven King of his day.
While Hamlet might be the quintessential statement on the human condition, it also features incestuous relationships, crazy bitches, a poltergeist, and a ton of sword fighting. The works of Shakespeare are built for wide appeal. They are meant to be alive. They welcome alteration to improve audience appeal.
In that way, things like Tromeo and Juliet are just as true to the spirit of Shakespeare as the masterpuss theater versions. (Tromeo is certainly more rewarding to watch than Baz’s Romeo + Juliet. )
But I’m not being paid to write about Shakespeare. Wait a second… I’m not being paid at all. Shit.
At any rate, this is ostensibly a movie column so let us look at some of the movies that are Bard-spawned. The big three plays are probably Hamlet, MacBeth, and Romeo and Juliet. There’s a ton of TV and film versions of each of those floating out there. We’ve had Olivier, Kenny B, and Mad Max all star as Hamlet in big productions. Hell, Romeo and Juliet is in the pitch of most people trying to sell a romance. Romeo and Juliet on a boat! Romeo and Juliet with street thugs and Puerto Ricans! Romeo and Juliet with a lawn gnome! (AKA Titanic,West Side Story, and Gnomeo and Juliet.)
Of the three plays, MacBeth is the most interesting yet it doesn’t seem to make for many memorable movies. Sure, there are “Lady MacBeth” moments (like Laura Linney going bitch-cakes in Mystic River). But there aren’t many movie versions that really capture our culture’s attention.
I can’t imagine that this is due to lack of trying. We’ve seen about a dozen TV and movie versions of MacBeth in the just the last 5 years. Well, I personally haven’t seen most of them. The only one I’m sure that I saw was Scotland, PA which features Christopher Walken, and a couple of folks from “Newsradio” and revolves around the innovation of drive thru fast food technology. It’s worth a watch, especially if you want to see an evil Maura Tierney. It’s an odd flick.
Of course, Julia Stiles is the queen of weird Shakespeare movies, having made three of them between ’99 and ’01. Those being :Ten Things I Hate About You (The Taming of the Shrew in highschool with the kid from “3rd Rock” in it), O (Othello as a kid that plays basketball), and that odd version of Hamlet with Ethan Hawke which is worth seeing only for Bill Murray and his admirable job of making Shakespeare dialogue sound natural. Otherwise, it put me to sleep.
Now as our incomplete Julia Stiles filmography shows, our cinematic infatuation with Shakespeare is not limited to a couple of works. Go to Hollywood Video and you can see a version of just about every play in numerous ways. Did you always wish that King Lear was a Japanese warlord? Go see Ran. Do you think that The Tempest needs some robot action? See Forbidden Planet! Do you think that Twelfth Night needs some Amanda Bynes? Well, you’ll have to wait later in the year for that thing but it’s on its way.
I guess what I’m saying is, when you’re stuck writing your screenplay, feel free to rip of the Bard. He doesn’t seem to mind. And feel free to take it in a new direction. Some friends of mine once starred in a production of Troilus and Cressida where all the characters were super-heroes and the fight scenes were done in the style of HHH wrestling matches complete with bottled water spit. It worked pretty well.
So maybe it’s all right to throw some cyber-punk dinosaurs into Much Ado about Nothing.
Partial Bibliography
Shenkman, Richard “I Love Paul Revere Whether He Rode or Not” New York 1991, pp. 76-80
