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Well, as noted previously, I was feeling a bit down with frustration over a (minor, really) setback, which tends to put me in a general funk about everything, miserable, and wondering if there's any point to any of this work I'm doing. Yes, I know it makes no sense. My brain is simply a little broken.
I've discovered a couple of things to suddenly cheer me up today. First, if I have any doubts at all about the worth of my version of Hamlet, it seems that all I have to do is watch a filmed version and I feel a LOT better.
Just got this version, with William Houston as the Prince. Yeesh.
Not that it's bad, per se -- and I've seen a few now that I would say that about -- but it has no depth or point-of-view.
I'm a little confused, as both IMDb at the Netflix envelope list it as being 3 hours 40 minutes long, and thus far (I'm 43 minutes in, the Ophelia/Hamlet scene) it's been MASSIVELY cut, and I can't imagine it going full-length (the DVD time code seems to indicate it's going to come in at just under 2 hours). And it doesn't seem to be a cut video of a longer version, as the scenes and text flow naturally. I appreciate the cutting, but it seems to be done just with the thought of "what can we cut while keeping the plot and the famous quotes intact?" rather than with any sense of trying to focus the play in any way.
I can't say at all that it is badly acted, but it is boringly and shallowly acted -- which I suppose should = "bad," but it's not like they can't act, they speak just fine and get across the bare meaning of the words, but there's no sense of really thinking about what they're saying. With every rehearsal of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet, we seem to find more and more going on in the text, subtleties and levels to explore and bring out. Such depth and richness. None of that in the one I'm watching now.
Okay, we're doing something good and valuable. I feel better.
And, second, if that didn't cheer me up, there's always the Kitty Dance:
Hee-hee!
I've discovered a couple of things to suddenly cheer me up today. First, if I have any doubts at all about the worth of my version of Hamlet, it seems that all I have to do is watch a filmed version and I feel a LOT better.
Just got this version, with William Houston as the Prince. Yeesh.
Not that it's bad, per se -- and I've seen a few now that I would say that about -- but it has no depth or point-of-view.
I'm a little confused, as both IMDb at the Netflix envelope list it as being 3 hours 40 minutes long, and thus far (I'm 43 minutes in, the Ophelia/Hamlet scene) it's been MASSIVELY cut, and I can't imagine it going full-length (the DVD time code seems to indicate it's going to come in at just under 2 hours). And it doesn't seem to be a cut video of a longer version, as the scenes and text flow naturally. I appreciate the cutting, but it seems to be done just with the thought of "what can we cut while keeping the plot and the famous quotes intact?" rather than with any sense of trying to focus the play in any way.
I can't say at all that it is badly acted, but it is boringly and shallowly acted -- which I suppose should = "bad," but it's not like they can't act, they speak just fine and get across the bare meaning of the words, but there's no sense of really thinking about what they're saying. With every rehearsal of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet, we seem to find more and more going on in the text, subtleties and levels to explore and bring out. Such depth and richness. None of that in the one I'm watching now.
Okay, we're doing something good and valuable. I feel better.
And, second, if that didn't cheer me up, there's always the Kitty Dance:
Hee-hee!
You can delete me once you've read me.
Date: 2007-05-18 01:33 am (UTC)From: (Anonymous)