Perspective

It's lunch.  So I popped in the last of my newly borrowed movies - Olivier's Hamlet.

Here's the thing, and whether it says something about Olivier or about Hamlet, I don't know - but I opened up *randomly* - in this case, the scene just after "Give me some light" where Polonius tells Hamlet to go see his mother.

And you know what? It's absolutely f^&*()ing brilliant. 

I have not seen this movie since senior year in high school (over 20 years ago) when Mr. Corey made us watch it.  My memories of it then are boring voiceovers, no Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and a relationship with Mom that made Mr. Corey pause the movie and remember to mention the whole Oedipal theory to us.

Maybe it is not saying something about Hamlet or Olivier at all, but about my own changed perspective.  I'm sure that 20 years ago I was thinking "When is this movie over?"  Five minutes ago, after 10 seconds of this exact same movie, I was thinking "I want to hear every single word, catch every single facial expression, contemplate every single directorial choice."  The way Hamlet just stops in mid conversation, points off into space and does the whole "Do you see yon cloud in the shape of a weasel" bit, the patronizing look on his face is wonderful, like "You stupid old man, how can you not possibly see that I see right through you?"  I wouldn't have been surprised if Hamlet at that moment said, "Do a little dance for me, Polonius" just to watch the old man bust a move.

I was optimistic about the Welles movies because I'd never seen one, whereas I was dubious about Olivier because I had 20 year old memories of it being dull and boring.  Funny how things change.

The 5 Minute Orson Welles

Ok, well, the same source that got me a peek at Chimes At Midnight also got me a chance to see Welles' Othello and Macbeth.  Hence my earlier post on your best 5 minutes - I don't have nearly the time to sit down and patiently watch all of these things.  It would take me days, and even then, I'd feel like I was rushing and not doing them justice.  So instead, at least for now, I skipped around a bit :)

For Othello, I can see much clearer what Alan meant about "the language of film."  This one seems to be all about the statement of the filmmaker, moreso than any of the actors.  Opening with the funeral procession of Othello and Desdemona filmed in stark black and white contrast (I don't just mean that the film is in black and white, I mean you'll be hard pressed to find any shades of gray anywhere), the scene cuts to a criminal being dragged through the streets in chains.   The term "baited with the rabble's curse" immediately came to mind as we watch Iago thrown into a cage.  Then, the movie starts.

I skipped a bit in the beginning - the quality of the film is poor.  Dark, poor sounds, and lots of skips and splices.  I guess I like Welles' as Othello, physically.  I mean, he's a guy in blackface wearing some sort of a turban.   What else can you say?  He's not really putting on any kind of an accent or anything.  He looks like a Shakespearean actor doing his lines.

Desdemona's death scene was weird for me, like something out of a Frankenstein movie.  Shots of her asleep (pretending to be, rather) in her chamber are interposed with shots of Othello approaching from far down the hall, giving this very empty feeling like they're the only two people in the entire castle.  I certainly wouldn't want to sleep there.  Interestingly, when Othello enters Desdemona shuts her eyes, pretending to be asleep.  I realize I skipped right to this part, but is she already afraid of him?  That was unexpected.  The scene overall I was disappointed with.  Like I said, it was like two people speaking their parts.  Desdemona did well at first when she stood up for herself, demanding that Cassio be brought forth to answer for the charges.  But when it came time to actually kill her, she didn't put up any real fight at all.  Nor did Othello look like he was particularly physical, it was more like "And now's the time in my soliloquoy when I put my hand over your mouth and you stop moving."  I kept thinking of how much I'd rather be watching Stage Beauty.

His Macbeth, on the other hand, I think I quite liked.  It was a little jarring at first, as the armies look vaguely like something out of a Genghis Khan epic.  Macbeth is wearing a crown that makes him look like he's the Statue of Liberty.  But the best part is that everyone is actually trying to speak in a Scottish accent!  You'd think that would suck, but to tell you the truth I got into it.  This was like night and day versus his Othello.  This was an entirely different Welles. Not only was he *acting* now, rather than just delivering lines, but he was acting like an entirely different creature.   I believed I was watching Macbeth, not Welles doing Macbeth.

Naturally I fastforwarded to my favorite part, the whole "lay on, Macduff" bit.  I was very pleased, because the scene played out not for the lines, but for the acting.  Macbeth looks at Macduff like a friend, warning him when he says simply "I bear a charmed life which must not yield to one of woman born."  It's like he's saying "Dude, back away, you can't win."  He doesn't scream it, he says it like a simple truth.  Macduff, however, never breaks form.  His blood is up, he wants Macbeth dead.  He only breaks free of their fight long enough to mention the whole "from his mother's womb untimely ripped!" thing.

Want to hear the best part?  On the line "I'll not fight with thee", Macbeth actually *runs*.  I'm sure I've seen other Macbeths run before, but somehow I believed this one more.  He waltzed into that fight knowing that he'd win, and now, knowing that he'll lose, he runs.  Of course he does.  So when Macduff chases him down and calls him a coward, the expression on Welles' face is a thing of beauty.  It's that "Oh hell no" moment where Macbeth finds himself again.  He's no coward.  Death is not exactly something to look forward to, but oh hell no, he is no coward, he will not be dragged through the streets.  So it is with an almost smirk, a look that says "I know exactly what I'm doing" that he delivers a very simple, very quiet "Lay on, Macduff."  It is with a great deal of resignation, is what it is.  Honestly it makes me wonder just how hard he was really fighting back.  When I've seen Macbeths charge full force back into the battle I tend to believe "Ok, he still thinks he can win."  Here it was pretty clear to me that he knew he couldn't.

Here's my two sentence summary:  I will go back and watch the entire Macbeth now.  I will not bother with the Othello.

The Five Minutes' Traffic Of My DVD Player

Ok, here's the game.  You've been handed the DVD of a Shakespeare movie you've never seen.  You're also about to get on a plane to a foreign country and won't be able to watch it for months because of regional issues.  So before you go, you pop it in and bring up your favorite scene, because you want to watch the best 5 minutes of the play.

What play, and what scene?  You like beginnings, endings, or something in the middle?  You like a tragedy or a comedy?

John Penry

http://www.executedtoday.com/2008/05/29/1593-john-penry-wales-puritan-shakespeare-christopher-marlowe/

There's a name I'd never heard before : John Penry.  Executed in 1593, the "greatest protestant martyr of his land" is interesting to us for this little cross-reference:

The day after Penry’s execution, star English playwright Christopher Marlowe was killed in a fray whose timing some find a bit suspicious.

Some enthusiasts think Marlowe faked his death and went on to write Shakespeare under a pen name. And if he did that, his confederates would have needed a body to pass off as Marlowe’s … the body, perhaps, of a man of Marlowe’s age and class who’d just been hanged a couple of miles up the road.

Indeed! :)

Shakespeare's Tomb Getting A Makeover

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23775385-23109,00.html

I remember blogging ages ago about the Friends of Shakespeare's Church trying to raise money to save Shakespeare's burial place.  Apparently they've got enough now to proceed, although it sounds like they still need more.  And no, they're not moving his bones.

Want People To Think You're Well Read?

http://www.bookdecor.com/hand-picked.html

If the only reason you're into Shakespeare is so your friends see high quality literature on your bookshelf when they come over, here's a solution for you. Book Decor sells "books by the yard" to use as decoration.  Seems like there's something to be said here about judging a person by their book covers?

(Note, books are not in English and I have no idea if there's anything vaguely Shakespeare related in there.  You don't get to pick the books, only the decorative style.)

[Found via http://www.boingboing.net]

Romeo and Juliet : The Soundtrack

http://colorblindblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/romeo-and-juliet-soundtrack/

This kid(?) had the assignment of creating a soundtrack for Romeo and Juliet (presumably the Zeffirelli version, since that's the image he chose).  I like some of the choices, although truthfully I don't recognize many of them.  Would have been cool to provide MP3 links, hint hint hint.  

Oh, and "Romeo and Juliet" the song is originally by Dire Straits, covered by The Killers (among others). It's not a Killers original.

"Juliet, when we made love you used to cry, I love you to the stars above, I'll love you til I die."

Good stuff.

Performance Envy

I wrote earlier today that "Words are timeless, performance is not."  If the greatest performance of Hamlet was performed 100 years ago, what's that to me?  I missed it.  Even today, the most ardent defenders of the "see it don't read it" school still freely admit "Every night is different."  So perhaps the best performance was yesterday, not tonight.  So sorry.

Aha, but what about film?  Now we're talking a whole different animal.  In a way it is simply the persistence of a performance.  You could, although it's not done so commonly anymore, do a straight recording of a stage play.  Or you could, to put it mildly, go crazy.  The "language of film" (thanks Alan) is not my point.  I'm interested more in the idea of persistence, and the idea of not missing things.

Rosenbaum's Shakespeare Wars  spends most of its opening chapters talking about a 1970's version of Dream by Peter Brook that changed the author's life.  He raves about it.  He travels the world looking for people to speak with about it.  But you know what?  I can't get into it.  Because I wasn't there.  No amount of praise from anyone who was there will bring me any closer to experiencing it, other than to simply say "Wow, I wish I'd seen it."  I have seen a good handful of Dream productions at this point, some good, some not so much.  The only real constant has been the text.  Each has bits and pieces that I like, but none had me stark raving.

Compare film.  Have I seen what Orson Welles did with Falstaff?  Not yet, but hang on a bit......ok, seen it.  Yeah, that was good.  I can now have an opinion, we can discuss it.  I feel as if I've shared that experience with others.   And by others I don't just mean others who have seen the movie, I mean the people *in* the movie.  I have an opportunity to feel what they feel, from my living room couch.

A different example that I'm trying to hunt down is Olivier's Othello, which apparently only exists as audio.  In trying to find the right words to do justice to Olivier's performance Rosenbaum chooses not a line, not even a word, but a syllable within a single word - Desdemona.  There's apparently a bit near the end, when Othello is wailing his wife's name, that his voice cracked in just that certain way that encapsulated all of the hero's anguish in one simple sound.  Had Rosenbaum been telling me this of a production he saw 30 years ago, I would at best be able to say "Wow, wish I'd seen it."  But instead I find myself thinking "I wonder where I could get that?"

It's here that performance wins, hands down.  I agree completely.  I can know the words of the plays, but in my head I would never see the facial expression of Hal when he denies Falstaff, or the cracking voice of Olivier's Othello.  For that, I need performance.  But I'm very jealous of performance.  Don't tell me that I've missed the good stuff, I don't want to hear that theatre is exciting because you never know what you're going to get from night to night. I want the infinite beauty and depth of what it means to be human.  Maybe I can have that on film, maybe I'll get to see it live.  Either way, they're both speaking the same words. So by studying the words I still get myself that much closer to the goal, even if I never get all the way there.  Know what I mean?

Shakespeare's Only Rival

http://www.nysun.com/arts/doing-battle-with-the-bard/76756/

Is Milton Better Than Shakespeare?  So asks Nigel Smith in his new book of the same name.  The title of this post comes directly from the article, in describing Milton: 

Ever since "Paradise Lost" was published in 1667, Milton has been acclaimed as a supreme English poet, Shakespeare's only rival in linguistic mastery. Yet even at the height of his prestige, in the 18th century, Milton never inspired the kind of ardent intimacy that readers bring to Shakesepare. Nor is it simply our lazy generation, unused to reading long poems and deaf to the majesty of Milton's artifice, that has relegated "Paradise Lost" to the seminar room. Even Samuel Johnson, in his "Life of Milton," wrote that "Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, retire harassed and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation; we desert our master, and seek for companions."

The article goes on to point out that apparently no, Milton is not better than Shakespeare, as the book really ends up being more of an introductory piece on the current issues in Milton scholarship.

Who Killed Marlowe?

So an anonymous poster found an old post of mine entitled Who Killed Christopher Marlowe? where he begs assistance:

Here's the thing,I've got an english project on this guy, this Marlowe fellow,and I want to know precisely how he died,and who killed him. can you recommend me a reliable source? you are Tht Shekespeare Geek after all.

I could go to the usual Wikipedia and things, but I'm wondering if somebody out there's a Marlowe Geek.  The best I'd be able to tell the commenter is the usual about Marlowe dying in a bar fight, and the theories about him secretly being a spy, faking his own death, that sort of thing.

Anybody got better, more reliable info than me?

Who Is Sarah Blasko?

http://www.ozmusicscene.com/sarah-blasko-does-shakespeare/

I'm not sure who this Sarah Blasko person is, but I like the idea of "composing the score for Bell Shakespeare Company's latest adaptation of Hamlet."  Anyone familiar with her work?  Australian, apparently.

Welcome John Hudson of The Dark Lady Players!

http://www.darkladyplayers.com

If you don't recognize the name, John Hudson is known for having put forth Amelia Bassano Lanyer as the latest contender for the Authorship Question (also known as the "Shakespeare was a black Jewish woman?!" theory).  When I first posted about the theory I wondered aloud if it was a joke.  I also wondered why the discussion is always about As You Like It, since it seems that you'd want to go right to Shylock if you're going to argue that a Jewish person created him.

So when I got email from Mr. Hudson, I apparently have no shame, I dove right in and asked both questions :).  Answers printed with his permission:

Q:  With all due respect, are you serious?  Or is this some larger satirical joke on the Authorship question as a whole that's gone over my head?"  (paraphrased)

A: Actually I am serious--which is why in March last year I went to London to present this theory to Mark Rylance and the Shakespearean Authorship Trust, who treated it seriously and brought her in as candidate number 8  at the top of the 'other candidates' section of their website. I would also not be spending money putting on demonstration allegorical versions of the plays unless I was serious!

Q: Why have I not heard anyone ask about Merchant, or even Taming of the Shrew?  Why would Bassano have written such misogynistic, anti-Semitic works?

A: This theory holds that the plays are written as allegories---as was much of Elizabethan and Renaissance literature---so they have a meaning in some cases on the surface that is opposite to what they really mean underneath. Both MOV and Shrew are quite complex, so  it is easiest if I begin  referring you to my analysis of more straightforward plays like MND and AYLI (which we are currently rehearsing for production in late July). Once you see how those work it is easier to make analogies to the others. For instance I would show why the way that Adam disappears half-way through AYLI is a parallel to the way that Shylock disappears half way through MOV--and what happens to them is similar. (I would however refer you to the literary signatures she has left on the two Shrew plays, which have also recently been detected by Rene Weis in Shakespeare Unbound pg 177).

(I certainly plead ignorance regarding the depth of these arguments, but that answer to the Shylock question does seem similar to the "nonono, it's not anti-Semitic, it's showing us the dark side of anti-Semitism" case that we've spoken of.)

Hudson goes on to add, "The only person who has ever considered Amelia  Bassano was the Russian critic Gililov, who  identified the Shakespearean quality of her poetry (The Shakspeare Game pgs 305-312) then decided as a lower class woman she could not have written it, even though she was educated by a duchess and a countess from the age of 7. Once you have read the two documents will be happy to talk further, and yes please use it in your blog, I would like to get the public debate going!!"  [John did attache two PDF documents for me, but I don't have a good way to attach them to this post.  Perhaps if he is reading he can provide links.]

 

John is currently producing As You Like It; The Big Flush: 

A Jewish toilet joke written using double allegories-this adaptation highlights the two characters called Jaques/Jakes (Elizabethan for toilet), and the character whose pocket watch identifies him as Sir John Harrington, the inventor of the flush toilet!

What are these characters, a dunghill, and many references to excrement doing in this play? Why does As You Like It end with Jaques warning that Noah's flood is coming? Why are there other flood references, like Hercules cleansing the Augean stables of manure?  Why does Touchstone go off to the ark with Audrey, who is named after St Ethelreda, the woman who was saved from a flood? Could this be the Last Day?

More info available at http://www.darkladyplayers.com

 

Thank you to John Hudson for his response, and the boatload of reference material he provided.  I've got some reading to do.

Anthony and Cleopatra's Tomb Found?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3998944.ece

Title sort of says it all, archaeologist thinks he may have found something big.  Coincidence noted that the new Indiana Jones movie came out this week, and that this guy - Zahi Hawass - is "known for his trademark Indiana Jones hat."

Best Marriage in Shakespeare?

http://www.shakespeareteacher.com/blog/archives/465

Shakespeare Teacher's got up the "question of the week", who has the best marriage in Shakespeare?  Is it, as Harold Bloom suggests, the Macbeths?  No taking the easy way out - ShakespeareTeacher doesn't want to count any comedies that end in weddings, since we don't technically know how the marriage will work out.

What do you think?

Shakespeare On The Cape

I'm excited!  Shakespeare On The Cape (Cape Cod, that is, for my internationals) is doing a kids' version of The Tempest this summer!  Regular readers may recall that my children, 5 and 3, know The Tempest as one of their fairy tales, and it is not uncommon for me to be asked over dinner questions like, "Daddy, what was the name of the monster on the island with Miranda and her Daddy and Ariel?" 

I'm thrilled, I hope very much that we'll be able to put together a trip to get down there.  Could there be a more perfect play for them?!

Shakespeare Geek At Home

"It's Elizabeth's last week of preschool next week!  We need to have a big party!"

"Tell me you're kidding?"

"Well, we did take Katherine out to dinner when she graduated preschool."

"Well, some traditions are better honored in the breach than the observance."

"..."

"Nuthin?  Hamlet?  Never mind."

Reading, Performing, and Chimes At Midnight

So I saw Chimes At Midnight last week.  Didn't love it. Sure, I respected it for a work of art.  But it didn't give me the kind of spinal lightning bolts that some movies/performances have done.  And I think I know why.  It gets back nicely to a recurring theme of this blog.  Ready?  Here it is:

I've never read Chimes At Midnight.  Sure, lifetimes ago I read all the Henry plays, but I'm sure I read them through once and moved on.

Compare the two biggies, Hamlet and Romeo&Juliet.  I've read those many times.  As such, I understand more of the play as it is performed, and thus I enjoy it more.  If we're talking about the Henry plays, there's really only two scenes that stuck with me from whenever I read them - when Hal prematurely takes the crown away from his father, whom he thought dead, and the new king's denial that he knows Falstaff.  Because of this, the movie bent itself around these scenes for me, if that makes sense.  Hearing lengthy streams of Shakespearean dialogue that you've never heard before is very, very difficult to follow, especially if there's not a great deal of plot advancement.  Or, worse, the plot advancement is happening offstage, and has to do with the politics of who is attacking whom. 

Reading the words, on the other hand, is very different.  You can pause and think about them.  You can look words up.  You can have those moments where you suddenly say "Ohhhhh, I know what that means!  That makes sense!"  In performance, that is impossible.  You don't get to pause and go back.

So, getting back to the movie for a bit.  There are parts that I understood before the movie ever started, parts that I hang the rest of the movie around.  Then there are those parts that make sense as they happen in the course of the movie.  Often those are simple plot developments, lacking in any real poetry.  After those bits come the bits where you scratch your head and say "I think I understood what just happened", and finally "Ok, I have no clue what he just said."

Doesn't it stand to reason that you want to maximize that first category?  Those are the lightning bolt moments.  I'll tell you seriously, whenever Hal announced that he was banishing Falstaff, the single look on his face told me so many thousand words more than the script ever could.  I want more of that!  When I'm channel surfing and I stumble across Luhrman's Romeo+Juliet I want to be able to stop and say "Oh wait, this is the good part..." no matter *what* part it is, because it's *all* good.    How can anybody possibly get that, if all they ever do is see performance?  Sure you'll get the plot and some of the poetry, but I find it hard to believe if you walk in cold that you're not leaving more than half the play on the floor when you leave.  It's when you read it that it sticks in your brain.

Do both.  I've always said, do both.  Reading's got nothing on performance, no doubt about it.  In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined Falstaff like Orson Welles played him.  What I've always said is that it's performance without reading that makes it all fall apart. If you're content to walk out of a Shakespeare performance saying, "Yeah, that was good," then I suppose I'll never be able to make my case.  If I can't convince you that every word is an atom, with infinite energies waiting to be released, well, then, I guess I'll have to keep trying.

A Night in Elsinore

http://www.shakespeare-parodies.com/hamlet.html

I could swear I've posted something like this, but I can't find it in my archives.  As long as we're on the subject of Shakespeare humor, I thought it'd be funny...

 

FRANCISCO
                        Ask him about the war!  

HORATIO
                        What war?  

FRANCISCO
                        Ask him if we should go to war with young
                        Fortinbras!

                                                HORATIO
                        Hey, Ghost, should we go to war with Fortinbras?

The Ghost shakes his head "no." He hold up ten fingers, and then three fingers.  

HORATIO
                        No. He says Fortinbras is too many. He thinks we
                        should go to war with thirteen-bras.

The Ghost slaps his knee and goes into fits of silent laughter. 

Macbeth and Prospero

http://stephenheiner.blogspot.com/2008/05/sound-and-fury-signifying-something.html

I have a bad habit of finding these more in depth posts in the morning, when I am at work, and don't have time to properly read them through.  This one is all about Macbeth, the "bloody orgy of death", and The Tempest, the "utter avoidance of death."  Somebody read it and tell me what point it's trying to make :).

Shakespeare Walks Into A Bar

Listen.  I love a good pun, and I love a good "walks into a bar" joke, and well, I have mixed feelings about Shakespeare ;). 

 

http://rivergirlie.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/shakespeare-walks-into-a-pub/

 

I only wish it was a better joke :).

 

A man is walking down the street when he rounds a corner and crashes straight into William Shakespeare, knocking them both to the ground.  "Can I get a beer?" the man asks.

"I beg your pardon?" asks Shakespeare.

"Terribly sorry," says the man, "It seems I've gone and walked into a bard by mistake."

What's Hamlet To Japan?

http://bustill.blogspot.com/2008/04/whats-hamlet-to-japan-by-kaori-ashizu.html

A fascinating history of how Shakespeare (particularly Hamlet) was introduced to Japan, via the Dutch translation, in the 1850's, and what happens in translation.

I Will Avenge You, Iago!

http://www.iagofilms.com/

Not quite sure what this is, exactly, but I saw a bunch of bookmarks fly past my feeds this morning that referenced "Iago Films", so I knew I had to check it out. 

Shakespeare's words aptly come to life in I Will Avenge You, Iago!, a comedy about great actors and their on and off stage dramas and farces including adultery, burglary, suicide and murder.

A great stage performance almost costs Jack Bandrowsky (Larry Pine - Melinda and Melinda, Vanya on 42nd Street, The Royal Tenenbaums) his life when a naive and confused audience member, Marvin (Keith Nobbs - Phonebooth, 25th Hour, It Runs in the Family) goes backstage to kill the villain Iago at the end of "Otello". In a desperately improvised and inspired performance, Bandrowsky convinces Marvin that the real villain is not him, but instead -- the Duke, who killed his beloved daughter Gilda.

Cry Havoc!

http://www.warlordccg.de/blog/2008/05/22/and-let-slip-the-dogs-of-war/

I have no idea what game that card is from, but I don't think I'd want to see him on the field of battle.

 

(That reference is small on Shakespeare, large on Geek. :))

Kenneth Starr Does King Lear

http://www.boston.com/ae/events/articles/2008/05/21/campus_calendar/

I find this link (courtesy my coworker Beryl) too late to be of much use since it's happening tonight, but you never know who's listening.  Kenneth Starr, he of Clinton/Lewinsky infamy, is dong a reading of King Lear to be followed by discussion of "how the political and legal issues in the play pop up oin state, national and international levels".  Free, but tickets are required.  Contact info at the link.

Shakespeare Anagrams, With A Twist

http://stellascript.blogspot.com/2008/05/adapting-shakespeare-part-i.html

A bit of a twist on the old Shakespeare Anagram idea - take anagrams of a play's title to create titles for new, fictional works.  Then write a summary of what that work would be. 

Where The Long Tail Ends

http://wherethelongtailends.com/archives/chimes-at-midnight

I don't think Matt is in the habit of blogging about Shakespeare, but after a post like the above I wish he was.  After admitting that he prefers adaptations to originals ("Why watch King Lear when you can watch Ran instead?  Or read Dream when Gaiman's Sandman beckons me?"), he confesses that his initial introduction to Shakespeare is, in fact, the Taming Of The Shrew episode from Moonlighting (everybody remember that show?)

So when he starts in on his praising review of Chimes at Midnight, I was hooked.  As I mentioned previously, I had a copy of the film on my iPod but never watched it and eventually let it get deleted.  Well now I want to see it again.  You'd think it difficult to review a film like this.  Not only is it Welles' own version of the several Henry plays (so it's not like you can say "Oh, ok, I know this play..."), it is considered by some (Rosenbaum among them) to be one of the greatest Shakespearean performances ever put on film. 

None of that scares Matt away.  His review is a well balanced combination of professional movie reviewer (noting particular directorial choices and camera shots he likes), just enough story telling to not give anything away, and praise for Welles' Falstaff, all while keeping the same tone as the guy who just a minute ago was singing the praises of Bruce Willis as Petruchio.  The final "Perhaps its time I give 'ol Billy another try," seems to sum up just how much Matt liked the film.

I can't wait to see it.

All-Star Lear Is Coming

http://www.getthebigpicture.net/blog/2008/5/19/new-king-lear-to-star-hopkins-paltrow-and-knightley.html

Straight out of Cannes comes the announcement of Lear, starring Anthony Hopkins (nice!), Gwynneth Paltrow (maybe now she'll start pinging my radar for something other than every time somebody calls her the Shakespeare in Love actres), and Keira Knightley ... who is famous for the Pirate movies?  Not sure what else she's been in.

I look forward to seeing this one!