![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep
So there was this version of Romeo and Juliet Julian Fellowes was adapting. In his own words. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nineweaving and derspatchel had something to say about that. Now that it's out, the A.V. Club just bypassed the language issue and wasted it on technical merits alone:
Though shot on location in Verona (in the dead of winter, if the actors' visible breath is any indication), Romeo & Juliet looks chintzy. The Capulets' masked balls is designed in Pier 1 Imports colors and texture, the lovers' secret marriage is performed in front of a green screen, and when Romeo goes up to Juliet's balcony, he climbs a plastic vine with cloth leaves. Walk-and-talk Steadicam shots abound; along with the hurried pacing (Juliet is dead for barely 10 seconds before the next scene starts dissolving in), they give the impression that the viewer is watching a hacky TV movie on the big screen, the sort of stuff that gives Masterpiece Theatre a bad name.
And I am sorry, because there are certain kinds of bad art I find absolutely brilliant, and then there's bad art that's just upsetting. Like bad food, when you expected at least something edible. It's a sloppy kind of cruelty; it wastes people's time. Not to mention whatever hope those two kids had of a career in Shakespearean drama, in which I assume they must have been at least faintly interested or they wouldn't have taken the parts.
This, on the other hand, actually angers the fuck out of me:
Speaking with the BBC, Mr. Fellowes ("Downton Abbey") has waved away criticisms of his alterations because "to see the original in its absolutely unchanged form, you require a kind of Shakespearean scholarship and you need to understand the language and analyze it and so on." With tongue presumably in cheek or perhaps just a foot deep in mouth, he added that he could do this kind of heavy interpretive lifting "because I had a very expensive education—I went to Cambridge." Recognizing that not everyone enjoys such advantages, he said, "There are plenty of perfectly intelligent people out there who have not been trained in Shakespeare's language choices."
NEWS FLASH, MR. ENTITLEMENT. YOU DO NOT NEED A DEGREE FROM CAMBRIDGE TO ENJOY SHAKESPEARE. OR PERFORM IT. OR PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT IT, REALLY. THE VERY GREAT NUMBER AND VARIETY OF HIGH SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PRODUCTIONS OF SHAKESPEARE PERFORMED AND ATTENDED BY PEOPLE WITHOUT EXPENSIVE EDUCATIONS SHOULD PERHAPS STAND AS EVIDENCE. OR DO YOU THINK THEY'RE JUST WATCHING THE PRETTY PEOPLE'S LIPS MOVE?
Seriously, why are we still having this argument? All it does is make some people sound like even more snobbish idiots than they probably are. And it annoys the pig.
(One bright thought to be salvaged from the NY Times review. Whenever they get around to casting that Hiddleston Much Ado About Nothing, someone look up Damian Lewis for Leonato. Right around the time the Brattle premiered Whedon's version, I ran into a review that called Clark Gregg's Leonato "everything you want in a father." Yeah, right up to the point where he disowns you for a whore and falls off the misogyny cliff with your fiancé.)
nineweaving and derspatchel had something to say about that. Now that it's out, the A.V. Club just bypassed the language issue and wasted it on technical merits alone:Though shot on location in Verona (in the dead of winter, if the actors' visible breath is any indication), Romeo & Juliet looks chintzy. The Capulets' masked balls is designed in Pier 1 Imports colors and texture, the lovers' secret marriage is performed in front of a green screen, and when Romeo goes up to Juliet's balcony, he climbs a plastic vine with cloth leaves. Walk-and-talk Steadicam shots abound; along with the hurried pacing (Juliet is dead for barely 10 seconds before the next scene starts dissolving in), they give the impression that the viewer is watching a hacky TV movie on the big screen, the sort of stuff that gives Masterpiece Theatre a bad name.
And I am sorry, because there are certain kinds of bad art I find absolutely brilliant, and then there's bad art that's just upsetting. Like bad food, when you expected at least something edible. It's a sloppy kind of cruelty; it wastes people's time. Not to mention whatever hope those two kids had of a career in Shakespearean drama, in which I assume they must have been at least faintly interested or they wouldn't have taken the parts.
This, on the other hand, actually angers the fuck out of me:
Speaking with the BBC, Mr. Fellowes ("Downton Abbey") has waved away criticisms of his alterations because "to see the original in its absolutely unchanged form, you require a kind of Shakespearean scholarship and you need to understand the language and analyze it and so on." With tongue presumably in cheek or perhaps just a foot deep in mouth, he added that he could do this kind of heavy interpretive lifting "because I had a very expensive education—I went to Cambridge." Recognizing that not everyone enjoys such advantages, he said, "There are plenty of perfectly intelligent people out there who have not been trained in Shakespeare's language choices."
NEWS FLASH, MR. ENTITLEMENT. YOU DO NOT NEED A DEGREE FROM CAMBRIDGE TO ENJOY SHAKESPEARE. OR PERFORM IT. OR PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT IT, REALLY. THE VERY GREAT NUMBER AND VARIETY OF HIGH SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PRODUCTIONS OF SHAKESPEARE PERFORMED AND ATTENDED BY PEOPLE WITHOUT EXPENSIVE EDUCATIONS SHOULD PERHAPS STAND AS EVIDENCE. OR DO YOU THINK THEY'RE JUST WATCHING THE PRETTY PEOPLE'S LIPS MOVE?
Seriously, why are we still having this argument? All it does is make some people sound like even more snobbish idiots than they probably are. And it annoys the pig.
(One bright thought to be salvaged from the NY Times review. Whenever they get around to casting that Hiddleston Much Ado About Nothing, someone look up Damian Lewis for Leonato. Right around the time the Brattle premiered Whedon's version, I ran into a review that called Clark Gregg's Leonato "everything you want in a father." Yeah, right up to the point where he disowns you for a whore and falls off the misogyny cliff with your fiancé.)
no subject
Pthbbbbt!
Nine
no subject
no subject
Do you bite your thumb at him, sir?
MIND IF I JOIN IN?
no subject
Not at all.
Nine
no subject
Hallelujah!
---L.
no subject
This the most depressing tent revival I've ever been to.
Also, my face hurts.
no subject
no subject
Heh.
no subject
no subject
I make allowances for translation. 1964 Russian Hamlet is the best version of the play I've seen in my life. But otherwise YES THIS.
no subject
no subject
no subject
There's a very fine episode of Gunsmoke about this!
no subject
no subject
I WAS LOOKING FOR VIDS BUT I JUST FOUND SOME SCREENCAPS INSTEAD IS THAT OKAY?
[edit: all right it has some vids down at the bottom but the Zeffirelli one is broken here watch this instead]
no subject
no subject
THE BAWDY HAND OF THE DIAL IS NOW UPON THE PRICK OF NOON.
no subject
no subject
Which I pretty much want to, right now, in order to feel better about the play!
no subject
Biting my thumbs isn't enough because he has probably scared people off. And enough people are scared off already, dammit, dammit.
So when Z was 6, the movie version of Midsummer with Kevin Kline as Bottom came out, and we went to see it. Actually we went to see it twice in a weekend because we loved it so much. And when we mentioned this to my aunt, she said "There's educational!" and Z said "No, what are you talking about, it wasn't educational it was fun!" Because he was 6 and he was my kid and he hadn't run into any of this crap yet that said it was difficult. And because it is fun.
Western culture. It is this awesome fun thing. And you can learn what you need to know to truly appreciate it by poking around enjoying it.
I shall never watch Downton Abbey now. And he may have spoiled my enjoyment of Gosford Park. There's lots of art out there that wasn't produced by elitist philistine jerks. Romeo and Julirt for instance.
no subject
That is what I hate. The snobbery as an attitude is idiotic and insulting enough: the damage it does is inexcusable.
Western culture. It is this awesome fun thing. And you can learn what you need to know to truly appreciate it by poking around enjoying it.
This! Lots of this! And running weird transforms on it! Like, oh, Shakespeare did with his source material. (What's that title by Arthur Brooke again?)
Also, educational things are quite wonderful. I like science and natural history museums myself.
I shall never watch Downton Abbey now. And he may have spoiled my enjoyment of Gosford Park.
Hold on to that one for Robert Altman, if it was valuable to you. Downton Abbey is not worth the expense of your brain.
There's lots of art out there that wasn't produced by elitist philistine jerks. Romeo and Juliet for instance.
I don't have anything against Palestinian art, but I have a lot of things now against Julian Fellowes.
no subject
no subject
"There aren't enough middle fingers in the world!"
no subject
I cannot tell you how much time this has saved me.
no subject
He was really off my radar entirely until Downton Abbey. I saw Gosford Park when it came out—and enjoyed it very much—and then I bounced very hard off the second season of Downton, which I thought started very promisingly and then ran utterly off the rails. (
no subject
In other words, it's not really a movie; it's an ad for shitty jewelry. Shitty jewelry which is almost entirely bought by and for teenagers who think they're high-taste romantics. In that sense, it accomplishes what it wants to accomplish perfectly.
no subject
I saw that mentioned in the A.V. Club review. It was not reassuring.
In other words, it's not really a movie; it's an ad for shitty jewelry. Shitty jewelry which is almost entirely bought by and for teenagers who think they're high-taste romantics. In that sense, it accomplishes what it wants to accomplish perfectly.
THIS WAS NOT A MISSION THAT NEEDED ACCOMPLISHING.
no subject
Nine
no subject
"Is the point here that the prince is an idiot, or did no one think this through?"