Damn, Talk about serious propaganda …
[just watching it again … had the dvd given to me for christmas]
Sure you don’t mean Henry V?
Probably talking about Richard III starring Ian McCellan and set more in a fascist modern England.
OK, the OP was completely different when I posted.
IMO I think that it is the best adapation of the Bard’s Richard III. Wonderful actors in great adaptation.
Not familiar enough with the other adaptations to call it the best, but it’s certainly very, very good. You get a real sense that Richard enjoys being a monster.
I haven’t seen it in years, but I remember Jim Broadbent and Annette Bening being standouts in this as well.
Wasn’t Richmond played by a young future-Jimmy-McNulty-in-The-Wire Dominic West?
Not necessarily. Criterion re-released Olivier’s 1955 version not too long ago.
I love this version as well, and McKellan aced it. Richard’s just got so many hilarious, ironic, self-serving lines! The first half of his whole opening soliloquy is ironic and sarcastic. Here are a couple more I love, and I’m paraphrasing:
I thank God for my humility.
Mother, I cry you mercy, I did not see Your Grace.
LOL i was working on a post for a different board and swapped contents …
:smack:
that is what i get for doing a shakespear movie fest when i havent slept in 2 days
Really? I havent seen that one since high school. last time it was on amc i missed it and the vcr had issues. i may have to get it to complete the collection.
mckellan did do a fantastic job.
it is interesting seeing the difference between the play and history.
Good performances and, obviously, a great script. But the movie is jarring to modern eyes. It’s one of those Technicolor movies where they threw every color on to the screen just to show they could.
My brother, who is the Shakespeare aficionado in our family, made me watch the McKellan version. Wow was I pleasantly surprised. I loved how McKellan decided that he was just going to play him as unrepentant evil incarnate! Right thru to the very end, where he plummets down into a hell-fiery death, Jolsen-music enhanced, no regrets smile all the way! Brilliant.
I definitely like the new movies much better than the Olivier ones - I understand that he is doing the stage acting in the film versions, and is way stylized. The new ones are more naturalistic so it really is comparing apples and oranges, but I really like how the new ones flow.
I have to admit though, I do not like when they update to some other era, like Hamlet in 1800s Denmark, or that movie that was whichever play done in modern NY in a skyscraper.
One of my absolute favorites is Much Ado About Nothing, even though it was updated to the 1700, the performances were excellent [even Keaneau Reeves stolid performance]
Personally, I prefer my Shakespeare stylized. The language is brilliant but it’s not naturalistic to modern ears. So I find it a poor fit in a modern setting. To me Shakespeare seems normal in an Elizabethan setting but seems artificial when it’s set in 1930’s Britain or 1970’s Russia or 1990’s Miami.
I actually tend to like it when the play is put in a more modern setting - it allows the director to use the set, costumes and so on to convey parts of the story that a modern audience might otherwise miss. McKellan’s Richard III isn’t exactly subtle, but it does do a very effective job of giving the audience an emotional sense of what sort of man Richard is, and what sort of men his followers are. Fascists resonate with people - using their imagery to help set up what’s going on makes it easier for the audience to focus upon the more (relatively) subtle plot and character points.
Remember, the Elizabethan audience saw little exotic or strange in the setting of the Bard’s English histories. It isn’t contrary to Shakespeare’s intention or the spirit of the play to ensure that modern audiences don’t, either.
I like it when they move it to a Victorian/Edwardian era. The setting is familiar enough that you can tell who is an aristocrat and who is a peasant, yet exotic enough that the "thou"s and "thee"s don’t seem out of place. Besides, I think Elizabethan-era clothes look kind of silly.
I didn’t interpret Baz Lurman’s version of Romeo and Juliet as Miami. I interpreted it as a Latin American banana republic, with the Montagues and Capulets as two rico families. It works frighteningly well, if you think of it in those terms.
I mean styalized performance wise. Much Ado is very natural, the lines flow like a real conversation. People seem to be themselves. Oliviers version was stilted, and ‘played’ like cookie cutouts, not people interacting.
I always thought it was supposed to be Miami (albeit renamed “Verona Beach”) and the Montagues and Capulets were two rival druglord families. But I guess it could work as two rival political factions in some Latin American country.
Looking it up in Wikipedia, I see it was partly filmed in Miami (along with Mexico City and Veracruz) so that would fit in with both ideas. But what surprised me was reading that Natalie Portman had been cast as Juliet - but she appeared too young opposite DiCaprio. Romeo + Juliet seems like a recent movie to me but Portman was only fifteen when it was made (DiCaprio was 21).
I do feel that KcKellen’s version is very good. I think the best Richard III I saw was Joe Pap’s presentation of it over 40 years ago with his Shakespeare In the Park. It too was done in modern dress…I was blown away.
But getting back to the contention of it being propaganda…Josephine Tey does a very good take on the whole Shakespeare writing to please Elizabeth I concept. It is in A Thief in Time (Thief of Time - not sure which). Her contention is that Richard did not limp have a hump or lisp. Nor did he have the princes wacked. She does a pretty good job of defending her thesis.