I’m a fairly cultured guy but one thing I have to admit is that until recently, I have had almost no exposure to Shakespeare. So I just rented Branagh’s Henry V which I have understood to be an excellent contemporary adaptation to the screen.
I have to confess, I wish there had been “English vernacular” subtitles. I find the language nearly impenetrable. Why is this dialogue considered crucial to maintain when it is so different than the way people speak now? Before you start throwing rotten tomatoes at me, please understand that I’m not saying “dumb it down,” or “be literal and bland,” but to update the eloquence (which is clearly there) with associations and examples that aren’t so foreign to the contemporary viewer?
And just in case anyone is thinking I’m not a TOTAL ignoramus, let me verify that I am by asking, did anyone actually talk like that in the 16th century?
They are superior plays(and consequently movies) than Henry V. I find that Henry V works better as a play if you saw the two most immediate prequels, Henry IV parts one and two.
Hamlet on the other hand, is a stand alone play and is considered by many(including me) to be Shakespeare’s greatest work. It is four hours long, but is easy to understand. It is Branagh’s movie of it that I saw first. The language in it is much easier to understand than Henry V and it is brilliant.
I think that there are levels of enthusiasm for Shakespeare’s work, just like everything else. If you’re new to his work, you may want to try more accessible interpretations to start out with, and then see if you’d like to learn more about Elizabethan English and the environment that the Bard lived and wrote in.
I think that it’s great that you have to interest in viewing interpretations of his work, and there is no shame in wanting to understand it more easily. Try something like Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet with Mel Gibson. If you then read Hamlet in the original and then see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, I’m sure that you’ll have some definite opinions about the things that you like and don’t like about Shakespeare’s work.
“Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life?” is from Hamlet. It’s part of a truly fine soliloquy, and I enjoy reading it a great deal. Without understanding that fardels are heavy burdens though, it is confusing and detracts from the meaning. Instead of understanding his dilemma (that he questions why someone would bother to continue living in this dreary world), the reader is puzzled by “fardels” and can’t move on.
As you read more works, and see more plays and films, you may find yourself not only understanding the original terms used, but enjoying the flow and meaning of the original more than watered down versions. If that never happens, you’re still gaining a lot by taking in almost any version. It isn’t so much crucial to maintain the original, as is it enjoyable and palatable.
You might also like Zeffirelli’s version of “Romeo and Juliet” (late 1960s). It was controversial at the time, because it actually showed the two as young teen-age lovers, which is faithful to the original. Worse yet (gasp) the movie showed them in bed together, the morning after their wedding. Romeo gets out of bed and walks to the window and he is (** double gasp **) stark nekkid. You got to see his butt. Oooooh. Like I said, it would be nothing in particular now, but was a big deal at the time.
One reason the dialog is kept intact is that, especially in the tragedies, much of it is poetry – blank verse, iambic pentameter. In R & J, the scene where the two lovers first speak, they actually build a perfectly constructed sonnet together. “Real” people in Shakespeare’s day, of course, did not normally speack in iambic pentameter, let alone in sonnets. We don’t go about spontaneously breaking into song, either, or suddenly leaping into a perfectly-coordinated dance number either, as you see in musicals!
For starters, that’s not just dialogue, it’s poetry. Moreover, it’s generally considered to be the greatest poetry ever written in the English language. To update it without losing its originaly eloquence would first require that you find a writer as good as William Shakespeare, which is not very likely. Plus, a writer that talented would have to be willing to forgo his own creative efforts in order to spend time fixing something that isn’t broken in the first place.
Which is not to say that lesser writers haven’t taken on that task. But considering that the last guy to try it, Sit Thomas Bowdler, is now chiefly remembered (somewhat unfairly) as a synonym for heavy-handed, prudish censorship, I doubt there are many people left out there who have the chutzpah to try and “improve” on Shakespeare.
If you really want to “get” Shakespeare, it’s going to take some effort. You need to watch his plays several times before you can even start to pick up on all the nuances, and you might want to get your hands on a good annotated version of the play to help you pick up on the Elizabethan slang and historical background that was common knowledge to the average theater-goer of Shakespeare’s day.
No, not really. Most of Shakespeare’s characters speak blank verse in iambic pentameter, using complex metaphors and compound imagery. In other words, it’s very affected and unnatural. You’re average man on the street in 16th/17th century London probably didn’t sound to different from his contemporary equivalent, excepting some era-specific slang.
I want to second Mahaloth’s recommendations for Branagh’s other works. Also, if you can find it, his screenplay for Hamlet may be helpful. A lot of his “stage directions” give his interpretation of what’s going on or the coloring he wants in the reading. It was written with studio executives in mind, and you can’t be any more of an ignoramus than those guys!
If you can find a copy, I highly recommend Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare, by the late Isaac Asimov. It not only explains a lot of antiquated terms, but also the cultural and historical background for the plays.
More of a diversion than something that will further your knowledge of the plays, but I would suggest checking out Shakespeare in Love. As history, it’s 99-44/100% pure bushwah (the origins of R&J are well-documented, and totally unrelated to what appears on screen); but it can provide a fairly painless introduction into how language was used by a certain segment of Elizabethan society.
If you want “vernacular” Shakespeare, what you want is thoroughly updated versions – that is, plays and films that are loosely based on Shakespeare plots without using any of his original dialogue. The most famous such is West Side Story, a Broadway-musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. More recent examples include Ten Things I Hate About You, which is Taming of the Shrew set in a modern American high school; andO, which is Othello set in a modern American high school (both movies star Julia Stiles). And I think the Mafia movie Men of Respect was based on Macbeth – and didn’t the Japanese director Kurosawa do his own versions of Macbeth and King Lear? And those movies do have subtitles in modern vernacular English!
But you’ll be shortchanging yourself if you limit yourself to such adaptations! The original dialogue is the best, even if it is placed in anachronistic settings – e.g., the recent Ian McKellen adaptation of Richard III, which keeps Shakespeare’s words but uses sets, costumes and weapons from the 1930s. Shakespeare would have no grounds to object – this is a guy who put a striking clock in Caesar’s Rome! Not to mention the seacoast of Bohemia, etc., etc. . . .
I second Baldwin’s recommendation of Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare. He not only gives you the historical background, he provides interpretations you might never get in a college English course. For instance, in Asimov’s view Hamlet is not about the prince’s indecision at all – he wants to kill Claudius but he is constrained by his very public situation. He has to find a way to kill his uncle and still become king himself. And Romeo and Juliet is really about the folly of romance: In Asimov’s view, by the time the play opens, the Capulet-Montague feud is on its last legs, being kept alive only by a few hotheads like Tibault. Romeo could easily ask Juliet’s father for her hand – but Juliet likes the romantic excitement of a clandestine relationship, and Romeo foolishly indulges her. Unorthodox stuff!
Also, remember, for any Shakespeare play you can pick up a cheap paperback edition with notes explaining the unfamiliar terms. In some editions the notes are on the left-hand page, the dialogue on the right-hand page.
Hijack: Sir John Falstaff hasn’t had his turn on the big screen since the Orson Welles film Chimes at Midnight! Hear me, Branagh? Let’s see a new version of Henry IV, Part 1andPart 2! “Can honour set a bone? . . .” End hijack.
Oh, and the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet is generally acknowledged to be based on The Tempest . . . though I think that’s rather a stretch. You might as well say Huckleberry Finn is loosely based on The Odyssey.
Please do try the Zeffirelli’s version of “Romeo and Juliet.” I’ve never heard anyone say that they didn’t like or understand that film. So much is right about that film!
I have seen editions of Shakespeare’s plays with the original dialogue on the right hand page, and a modern vernacular translation on the left. You might want to look for some of those, although I haven’t been impressed by the ones I’ve seen. The paperback editions popular for use in English classes often have extensive notes on the left hand page explaining obsolete terms and obscure references, and I personally consider that the way to go if you’re really having a hard time understanding the dialogue.
All this talk of Shakespeare and no mention of Ian McKellen’s version of Richard III? For shame!
I highly recommend it. McKellen himself did the screenplay, and there’s some lines that have been altered slightly to sound a bit less archaeic, to go along with the twentieth century motif.
A quick note about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. If you didn’t already know, it is not a Shakespearean play, but a fairly recent one by a dude named Stoppard.
That said, it’s absolutely brilliant, well written, and very, very funny. If you don’t know Hamlet, though, you’ll be lost during a good portion of it.
And while we’re talking about Kenneth Branagh, I recommend watching the version of Othello starring Laurence Fishburne as the title character and Kenny as the villian Iago.
The character of Iago is, in my opinion, one of the greatest literary villians of all time. Branagh pulled it off very nicely.
And remember. If you’re having trouble understanding any Shakespeare, you can always buy the Cliff’s notes. They’re not just for scrambling students who have essays to write.