Romeo and Juliet is Insane

My first reaction to watching Romeo and Juliet (the one with DiCaprio) was, holy @#$! this is crazy. There is no subtlety, no restraint. And... on thinking about it, that was really appropriate. I mean, yes this goes more crazy than Shakespeare certainly intended, cross dressing Mercutio being one obvious example, I feel that it worked. Not in a serious light in any way, but it seemed to have fun going completely crazy and I did enjoy a bit of it. At least I enjoyed the first half of it.
The second half was where it went downhill for me. The first half was so over the top, it seemed almost a parody, for it then to go more serious seemed dumb. To have a gun fight with a freaking gas station exploding and then for me to be worried about a character being wounded? A GAS STATION BLEW UP. YOU ARE HAVING GUN DANCES. YOU CANNOT EXPECT ME TO TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY.

And before you give the argument that the same happened in Shakespeare. NO. In Shakespeare it works because having a happier beginning only serves to more starkly contrast the tragedy that would follow, AND the beginning, while more jovial, was still tense and somewhat serious. Yes, there was good times had by Romeo and company, but that was intended to make us like and care for the characters in the play. So when they actually die, we care.
If you're going to go insane, go fully insane. Make it all a joke. But by having the giant contrast between the first and second half, and not doing it in a deliberate and skilled way, it weakens the movie, putting it somewhere between a parody and a serious take.
(An example of a hilarious parody of Romeo and Juliet[and Shakespeare in general] is this The Complete Works of Shakespeare(Abridged):Romeo and Juliet )

As for the update to modern times, or any other times that was not intended in Shakespeare, It can work. One amazing example of a change  that looked really cool was this interpretation of Julius Shakespeare that used African Americans for Romans http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q7apiYunEU
I feel that what makes Shakespeare, Shakespeare is the language. If you can make his writing sound natural I feel that you can make any Shakespeare play work. The imagery, the characters, heck even the plot can be changed(as the Abridged Shakespeare proves), but the language is the most important for maintaining the identity. The language isn't everything though. While I feel it is important, and the most signifying part of a Shakespeare play, the play is still made up of the acting, props, costumes, the stage. While changes can be made, they need to be made in way that maintains some sort of internal consistency and logic, as well as working.

And finally, and on a slightly less relevant note, I love the beginning scene of Romeo and Juliet, Do you bite your thumb at me Sir?

History, Myth and King Arthur

So, I'm a little late to this party, but I wanted to talk a bit about King Arthur.

We talked briefly about whether Malory intended Le Morte D'Arthur to be a historical text or not. I can blame my concern with this question on my mother. My mother is an author and one of her novels is about the Arthurian myth:

(Available here if anyone is interested)

The synopsis on the back cover includes the question "What if Malory got it wrong?" My principle complaint about this question is this: for Malory to have gotten something wrong we assume that he is writing a historically verifiable document and not a work of fiction. Malory cannot be "wrong" if he's not trying to write a history.

There is no question that history and mythology overlap. In the oral tradition, mythology was one way in which our shared history and traditions were passed down. For Malory this function of mythology would be similar. He is sharing the nostalgic cultural ideals of the courtly romance; loyalty, valor, good violence; with his readers, and showing the faults present in even heroes and paragons.

-Steve

Social Media and Pop Culture

One of my friends recently brought up something that's relevant to our class. She was saying that her favorite thing about social media is that you can "'watch' things without actually having to sit and watch things." She was referring to the Oscars but I think it can definitely refer to lot of other media.

For those with tumblrs, I'm sure we've had the experience of understanding the plotlines of countless shows without even watching a second of it. We see posts (gifs, graphics, text posts, pretty much anything) and unless you block out posts in that show, it’s likely that you will get spoiled about the plotlines and characters of the story. Usually this happens with a bigger fandom (Supernatural, Doctor Who, Teen Wolf, etc.) If you’re on tumblr for an extended amount of time, you probably will get exposed to a popular show, whether you want to or not.

Going back to the Oscars, twitter was blowing up with updates throughout the night about who won what (sidenote: I’m team Lupita Nyong’o forever), along with updates about the speeches, jokes, skits, attire, and more. At one point during the night, Ellen Degeneres (who hosted) challenged viewers to break the record of retweets (which was the first thing Obama tweeted after this past presidential election) and instead make a selfie with her and a slew of different actors the most retweeted. This CRASHED twitter. And broke the record before the night was over.

There’s no doubt that this passing of information so quickly would have been possible without the internet. I believe we’ve spoken about this topic before in class but I wanted to give an example of this phenomenon in action.

What I Remember About King Arthur

I am very sorry to have missed class last Tuesday, but I wanted to add my King Arthur story.

My knowledge regarding King Arthur began when I was very young. While not my favorite Disney movie, I have watched the film The Sword and the Stone several times in my youth. I think the last time I watched it I was in elementary school, or there about. My favorite scenes, as I have come to find out, have absolutely nothing to do with the actual story of King Arthur. My favorite parts were when Merlin turned Wart (young Arthur) into animals to teach him life lessons and help him become a better man and a just ruler…or maybe just because Merlin was a crazy kook.

The saddest part for me was when Wart turned into a squirrel and that poor love-struck girl squirrel falls madly in love with him. Once he turns back into a human, the pain and sadness captured artistically is just beautiful.  

http://bplusmovieblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/the-sword-in-the-stone-48.png

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs42/f/2009/114/8/3/sword_in_the_stone_squirrel_by_dex_drako.jpg

I, of course, enjoyed the magic fight scene between Madam Mim and Merlin...I now assume Madam Mim is in someway supposed to represent Morgana...

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http://animatedviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/SwrdStne-09.jpg

Only a very few aspects of The Sword and the Stone are in any way accurate. The Disney movie has King Arthur, Sir Kay (though the wrong personality), Sir Ector (though wrong personality), and Merlin...which in some ways can be accurate, if abstractly. Oh, yeah, the sword in the stone that only Arthur can free is accurate.

Another movie, closer to the rendition we read for class, is the movie Excalibur that debuted in 1981. This version includes King Uther, how Arthur was conceived by deceit and magic (provided by Merlin). Merlin is slightly more sinister and tricky. This movie includes Morgana (as Arthur’s sister, not aunt) and Mordred…an extremely odd character no matter the version. Again, I feel this version did do more justice to the original King Arthur story, but for cinematic effect and time restraints, several things were still left out.

Perhaps one of my favorite parodies of King Arthur is a clip from the comedy group The Upright Citizens Brigade. They did a new age Lady of the Lake meets Frat boy that is so funny, odd, and so completely strange.

UCB Lady of the Lake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGFTCMHakR4

Knowing Nothing About King Arthur

 

            So as Dr. MB said, I have been working on a paper that involves Merlin, Logres, and Arthur. As I have been coming through various versions of the legends, I realized how much of it was new to me. I didn’t know that is how Mordred died, I didn’t know that was how Gawayne died, and I didn’t know that was how Arthur was born. Most of the specific adventures are still unknown to me and most of the ones I know now I have read for college. I attribute my interest in the Middle Ages to Lord of the Rings not Arthur. Yet somehow I knew the basic story quiet well. I have been trying to figure out where I got it from and have found that I have had surprisingly little exposure to it. And the things I did see I somehow knew to be wrong or only part of the story. I saw the Sword in the Stone once and I barely remember it. The only thing I really do remember is that I hated it because I felt it was getting the story wrong; it was far too silly to bear the weight of the legend. The only other thing I remember from childhood is that once my family spent a couple of days in Vegas and we went and toured the Excalibur Hotel. We didn’t see a joust or anything, but we did stop in the gift shop where we got some wooden swords with the sword in the stone inscription and mislabeled Excalibur. Still, I remember thinking that the hotel did not have it right, and that it was not fair that my brother found a 50 dollar bill on the floor. Molly brought up the medieval fair Arthur episode, which I remember watching in high school with my little sister. The only piece of Arthurian legend that I remember I felt good about was the Grail legend from Indiana Jones. That is all the direct Arthurian exposure I can remember getting before college.

            The best I can guess is that at least part of my idea about what the King Arthur legend should be came from the sense I got from hearing my parents and others talk about it. I know my parents never told me stories about Arthur; they say that now. But from them I must have gotten the sense that it was in fact a legend, and was important for being so somehow. My dad had to explain the mock middle English inscription of my wooden sword, and from that got that it must be fairly important thing to be king of England for someone to put it so official sounding on a sword. To wrap up this ramble then. It seems to me that much of what I and perhaps others got of Arthur was more roomer than content. By running into a lot of references to something one gets the idea that those little bits represent a much larger and important story. So maybe Arthur continues as a legend because that is sometime the first sense someone has of it. It is an important but ancient part of culture because that is how we grow up understanding it.

Ah, Romeo and Juliet, We Meet Again

It’s funny how some things, even a Shakespearean play, come full circle.  The first time I read this play was in eighth grade and I hated it.  I had no idea what I was reading and why it was considered one of the most iconic pieces of literature.  I swore I would never read it again.

Then sophomore year of high school we had to read it.  This time it was a little more bearable.  I had an amazing teacher who made learning and understanding the language of the play fun.  But I still swore I was never going to read it again.

Now here I am, my junior year of college, reading the play for the third time.  I must say though, I am much more open-minded about reading it this time than I was in the past.   Maybe it’s because I’ve matured in my English major-ness or maybe it’s because I’m excited to discuss something in class that I actually have a good amount of knowledge about.

I’m a little more than halfway through reading the play again and I’m proud to say that I understand 90% of what their saying.  This is huge for me.

For one, I’ve never been a huge fan of the play.  For years I’ve been indifferent to it all, but now that I’m older and can fully appreciate the story as a whole, I’m really starting to dislike it.

Honestly, I don’t think that it’s a love story at all.  I see it as being more of a lust story.  Two teenagers, both under the age of 18 get married and then kill themselves because they think they can’t be together.

To me it’s all a bunch of rubbish.

Romeo and Juliet are two of the most immature characters I’ve ever experienced in all of the literature that I’ve read.  They drive me insane.  To top it all off, you have the Nurse and Friar Lawrence who willingly enable and encourage these kids to make terrible mistakes that will eventually end their lives.

In relation to pop culture, I have no idea why this has grown to be so popular.  Perhaps it’s the notion of forbidden love or “star crossed lovers” that makes everyone swoon.  But in reality, there is nothing to swoon about.  They both die in the end.

I decided to watch the Baz Luhrman version of the movie last night and let’s just say it was an interesting experience.  I had only ever seen the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli version of the movie, which I really enjoy.  But the Baz Luhrman movie was way out of my comfort zone when it comes to Romeo and Juliet.

The beginning sequence of events is what really threw me off.  The cinematography was really weird, the acting was a little strange, and I just wasn’t convinced that the story could be told from a modern day perspective. 

The movie did have some funny moments though, especially when they managed to incorporate lines from other Shakespearean plays into the dialogue.  During the beginning scene when the Montagues and Capulets and fighting at the gas station, someone (definitely a Montague) says, “Double, double toil and trouble,” referring to Macbeth.

I think the movie made the sequence of events easier to understand, and I have to give credit to Luhrman for taking on such an ambitious project, but I really hated the whole thing.  The fact that the dialogue stayed true to the original play but the setting was modern day really made me hate the movie even more.  I think any play by Shakespeare should be performed within the time period it was written.

Okay, I think I’m done bashing/ranting about Romeo and Juliet for now. 

With that being said, I’m looking forward to discussing both the play and the movie with everyone in class!   

King Arthur for Children

Growing up, the most exposure I had to King Arthur was through children’s shows. Go figure. I watched Disney’s “The Sword in the Stone,” but not often enough to remember it for class. I’ll have to watch it soon. I vaguely remember an episode of Wishbone with the adorable dog in chain mail, though that may have been the Joan of Arc episode. There was a book, so I’m sure they made an episode of it. 

And I remember an episode of Arthur where they go to a Medieval Fair with contests and a sword in a stone. (I have found the episode!)

Sidenote: In class this past Tuesday, I realized that most of my knowledge about classic literature comes from Wishbone: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (by far the best and scariest episode there ever was), King Midas, Don Quixote, and Rip Van Winkle, among many more. If anything, I desperately want to watch the episodes that I have now read the books they were based on to see if they were done justice. I think shows like Wishbone were a great way to introduce children to literature, and maybe it played a part in my English Majorness. We need more television shows like this. It is also interesting to look at how certain books were adapted to be fit for television and children and to star a dog. It’s a pretty amazing example of crossing over. Like our discussion about Star Wars Uncut: Is it still Star Wars? With Wishbone, are those stories still those stories? Perhaps it’s a little different. But, with any adaptation it’s important to think about these things. We’ll be reading and watching various forms of Romeo & Juliet; are those still Romeo & Juliet? Adaptations are my favorite thing to study because there are so many variations for so many things. How far can we stray before it is no longer considered the same story? 

King Arthur. The first King Arthur reading I did was Geoffrey of Monmouth for British Literature. I was excited because, as we said in class, everyone (or almost everyone) knows the names King Arthur and Excalibur. We could probably throw in Lancelot and Merlin, too. After Geoffrey, I wanted to read more, but I didn’t until this class. I was surprised by how little Merlin was featured in our passages and by how much face time Lancelot received. I expected it to be about King Arthur and not the Knights of the Round Table. There is so much of King Arthur that doesn’t get show through other texts. I can’t say I’m surprised that these things are left out, but there is so much I did not know. Reading Malory’s accounts of King Arthur was enlightening. I would definitely like to read the rest. I also feel the need to power through the last few episodes of Merlin. I know. But, I like it. At least the earlier seasons.