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ineffably-smote · 3 months

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Macbeth, David Tennant - A very subjective, spoiler and emotion filled review

Just walking out of seing Macbeth at the Donmar and I have Feelings. Unsurprisingly, I primarily went to see it because David Tennant was in it. I love the play, big fan of Shakespeare but the trip to London was most certainly motivated by a very specific actor. Hence the highly subjective review. Fortunately, I also happen to quite like Macbeth. We studied it at school, and it holds a special place in my heart (back then, Hamlet was my favourite Shakespeare play but honestly, after tonight, I’m not so sure anymore. Anyway, I digress). It was my first time actually seeing an actor I’m a fan of in real life, so obviously the entire time my brain was just going oh my god that’s David Tennant oh my god that’s David Tennant like I actually could not comprehend it. The man I’ve spent hours staring at on a little screen is suddenly real, and right there. So yeah, that took me a hot second.

(Excuse the piss poor image quality, I took this with shaky hands without looking or bothering to focus the cam)

The Staging

Still starstruck and a bit dazed, one thing really really stood out to me: the staging. It was so, so good. I knew it was going to be minimal from the pictures I had seen, and it was, but it was also so insanely real. There were barely any decorations, and half the cast and the musicians were hidden behind a glass screen doing background noises and gestures. From where I was sitting I could not see them much, but could definitely hear them which added to the overall atmosphere. The stage was also really tiny, and the play benefitted incredibly from it. All the action was happening in one tight space that had been put to use incredibly well, particularly the banquet scene but I’ll come back to that because it deserves its own paragraph.

The way they chose to do the soliloquies was so fitting - all the actors start to move in slow motion - everyone else slowing down and just the characters speaking moving was so good, it made sense.

The Headphones

I’m a bit mixed about the headphones. They were amazing for the vibes, we could hear whispers and they really heightened some of the emotional speeches in the play - because when someone is struggling with guilt and trauma it makes sense for them to be mumbling rather than yelling. So that was really great. However, especially in the scenes where the actors where yelling/ loud I preferred to take them off a bit cause it felt more real that way. I’m so used to hearing actors voice on recordings, it does hit different when you can hear them for real. But, as I said, personal preference and that’s what’s nice, you can take them on and off as much as you want.

Famous Speeches

There were three speeches I was quite interested to see how they were going to be adapted - scorpions and dagger for Macbeth, and out damned spot for Lady Macbeth. These are classic, everyone knows the words, the plot but they managed to make it feel real in a new and touching way. I think here the headphones were quite helpful because they allowed the actors to actually whisper parts of those lines. They were so subtle, so embedded in the text they felt so natural which imbued them with all their power. I saw in a review Cush Jumbo’s out damned spot speech be described as “haunting”, and I wholeheartedly agree.

The Macbeths

I didn’t like Macbeth, the character, very much when I first learnt about him. His actions didn’t make sense to me, I couldn’t quite comprehend in my 21st century little brain how he went from I’m super loyal to the King to I will freely murder children for shits and giggles. But now, now I understand. It makes sense, it’s believable. And that’s a mix of the acting choices and teh overall setting. Like the opening scene, instead of presenting Macbeth as a glorious hero, he is presented to us as a traumatised hero. He spends the first few minutes washing the blood of his clothes, haunted by noises from the battlefield. And that sets the themes quite nicely, not ambition, as Tennant specified in an interview, but guilt and trauma. There are so many ways to interpret Shakespeare, that’s the beauty of it, and I think this version of Macbeth just resonated more with me (maybe because ambition I don’t quite understand but guilt I am intimately familiar with? Or maybe because it was David Tennant? I don’t know, probably a bit of both). Tennant delivers a convincing Macbeth. Yes, you can see his ambitions play out, but also his fears, his guilt, and that makes him into a complex three dimensional character that you want to understand.

And I absolutely loved this version of Lady Macbeth. Not just a powerful woman who bullies her husband into become an evil murderer (because again, here we can see traces of that in Macbeth from the start), but an ambition woman in love, with her husband, with power, and not quite healed from the trauma of loosing her child. Again another review said she is more of an enabler than a manipulator and I quite liked that description.

My Favourite Scenes

God the banquet scene. The one with the ghost of Banquo. An absolute masterpiece. I did not expect that scene to hit that hard. It was raw, it was powerful and even if Tennant was facing away from where I was sitting, even without seeing his face I could feel the emotion, the whole audience could. In a video essay on Tennant, @davidtennantgenderenvy highlighted how in almost every role he played, there is it is the classic Tennant breakdown moment, and breakdown moment it was. Not with tears, not as expressive as he sometime is but just enough for a King trying to hold it together but fear and guilt breaking through. I was absolutely overwhelmed and it was beautiful. The set up for the scene was amazing too - there were ceilidh, celebrations, I adored the contrast between these fast pasted scenes and guilt ridden whispers of the couple. And the way everyone sat down around the stage and suddenly it looked like a banquet table ? Just perfect.

Another really cool moment, less on the emotional side but more on the visuals was when Macbeth goes to get the second prophecy from the witches. Almost the whole cast is there, running around, moving, almost dancing and it gives the whole thing a mystical atmosphere. There’s smoke, Macbeth falls, is carried up high Jesus style, cowers, rises, it’s so busy and insane all the while there are whispers and whispers in the headphones - it manages perfectly to feel like a mystical moment.

Descent Into Madness & other cool things

For Macbeth, having the kid running around scene after scene, haunting him, and then scene where he kills him - GOD it’s powerful. Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness was so well characterised, I also loved the glass on the background that locked away some of the cast. Just wild. The actor that played Malcom actor was also really cool, and Macduff and Ross, big fan of all of them.

Overall I am overwhelmed with emotions. Tennant is truly one of my favourite actors - from Good Omens to Staged, Jessica Jones, even Harry Potter but also Mad to be Normal, Nativty, There She Goes, Around the World in 80 days, Doctor Who (god I’ve started a list, never start lists cause you’ll forget people) and so, so many more, I was truly beside myself with excitement and expectations for tonight. And it did not disappoint. I do not want to leave the theatre and I pray they release a recording of this because I want it imprinted on my soul.

(Side note: I don’t know how to use tumblr very well, for some reason whenever I try to reply to ppl it posts from my other blog? Anyway @raquel-and-sergio is in fact me)

#david tennant #Macbeth #donmar macbeth #review #sort of #more like therapeutic ranting for me #because i love this Scottish man so much #and i dont want this moment to be over yet #or ever for that matter #good omens #tenth doctor #fourteenth doctor

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weirdly-specific-but-ok · 1 month

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julius caesar but i've never watched it

...either the play or the actual man. I am not a time-travelling voyeur. Why does that give Doctor Who vibes? I haven't watched that either.

Anyway, happy Ides of March, tumblr. I am about as enthusiastic about the celebration as Neil Gaiman is, but here we are. Doing what I do worst, making a summary of things I have no authority to summarise... WAHOO LET'S GO. Whatever it is I know about the play:

Caesar was vibing sometime around the '40s. 0040s, not 1940s.

He has a wife named Calpurnia. A maggot wants to be her because and I quote 'no one ever listens to me either'.

She tells him not to go to some kind of coronation or speech or something on the Ides. He's like nah wifey 'sall gucci.

I regret saying that sentence. As did Caesar, because he went and got stabbed in 44. Spoiler alert.

People ship Mark Antony with Caesar but some ship Brutus and Caesar. *youtuber voice* Comment below with your favourite ship.

Don't do it I don't want to know. Anyway, he's also married to Cleopatra, who is killed by snake venom that may not have been snake venom or something.

Idk they were cute. They had a kid that ran away and Asterix and Obelix had to take care of him. Caesarian?

WAIT IS A C-SECTION CALLED A CAESARIAN BECAUSE YOU CUT IT OPEN AND CAESAR WAS STABBED? WHAT?

There is a soothsayer. He tries to soothwarn Caesar.

Caesar does not soothlisten. Caesar is a lil bitch.

On the Ides of March, Caesar goes up to the soothsayer who is lurking on the steps of the maybe-coronation place. He soothsays The Ides of March are come!

The soothsayer soothsighs and soothsays Aye, Caesar, but not gone.

The senators, otherwise known as the soothslayers, have been plotting for a while. Brutus is a very dear friend of Caesar. He thinks Caesar slays.

But the other senators convince him this is what's best for Rome. So he thinks Caesar should be slayed.

So now the soothslayers at the maybe-coronation gather around Caesar and start stabbing him. Et tu, Brute? and all that (though I remember something about that phrase not meaning the same thing as it does in popular context...).

The soothslayers are a bit extra. Like bro. One stab to the heart would have soothsufficed.

Anyway, Caesar is soothslayed like the soothsayer soothsaid.

There is a funeral thing. The People of Rome are cranky.

A maggot once said Moots, maggots, countrymen! and it lives rent-free in my head.

Anyway what Mark Antony actually says is a whole ass speech. FRIENDS, ROMANS, COUNTRYMEN, LEND ME YOUR EARS. I COME TO BURY CAESAR, NOT TO PRAISE HIM! THE EVIL THAT MEN DO LIVES AFTER THEM, THE GOOD IS INTERR'D WITH THEIR BONES (I THINK I HAVEN'T HEARD THE SPEECH IN A WHILE OK) SO LET IT BE WITH CAESAR.

So he gives the soothspeech and everyone is emotional. IF YOU HAVE TEARS, PREPARE TO SHED THEM NOW. Damn bro. It's like playing villain music just as the camera focuses on the villain.

Anyway then there is a lot of chaos and blah blah blah Mark Antony does some stuff Caesar's adoptive son Octavian does some stuff.

There's some bloke named Augustus who may or may not be Octavian (if he was sorry for the deadname Auggy my bad).

Brutus is killed? Or he kills Mark Antony? One of them die.

They were totally not fighting over who was a better lover to Caesar.

Roman Republic gone byebye as I say to Roxie. Roman Empire starts. The end.

Er.

That was a thing. I rather like summarising my homeboy Shakespeare haven't read him in a while and I only read his comedies. Maybe I should do more in honour of the Globe Theatre Maggots.

Happy Ides. Please don't soothslay me. I've been a good Maggot Prince to you, haven't I?

*runs just in soothcase*

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heartinportuairk · 3 months

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I went to the final performance of Macbeth last night and I wanted to make some notes for myself so I would remember some things. I only use this account for lurking but I am making this public in case anyone scouring the David Tennant / Macbeth tags is interested in my musings for some reason.

I had been lucky enough to have seen this production three times already before last night - twice in December and once in January - so I have been able to track its journey and pick out what changes night on night and what doesn't. I have found that fascinating. Any changes were minor and pretty much exclusively found in simply the way a line was spoken. For example, the brilliant Noof Oussellam (Macduff)'s "but I must also feel it as a man" was impassioned and angry the first and last times, but the two times inbetween I found it to be more subtle. More sadness, more despair than anger. I guess it comes down to how the actor is feeling it in that point in time and I think it shows a great understanding of the character that they play them in the moment and don't just mimic themselves night after night.

The other great thing about going multiple times is viewing it from different angles. I saw it from all sides, twice from the stalls and twice from the front row of the circle. Honestly, circle was better, especially for Macbeth's death in the closing moments. You do not get the effect of the blood seeping out from under him from the stalls and I tell you now, that image from above sears itself onto your brain.

All of the actors are incredible and have been from the start, but there were a few times last night where I could feel them step up their game. Like they knew it was the last time they were going to say that line (at least for a while) so they were going to give it their all.

One of those times was Macbeth's "tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy which had always been brilliant and very moving, but about which something was a little different last night. The quiet, raw emotion in that speech felt as though it had been ramped up (or down??) a notch and was so palpable that it brought a tear to my eye.

Another moment came from Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene. Again, always brilliant and always moving but somehow desperately sadder this time around. I wanted to give that murderous, conniving fiend a big hug.

The Porter:

The porter scene is funny but obviously not as much when you know what's coming. Which is why when somebody in the audience yelled out "who's there?" right before he got a chance to say his "ok seriously do none of you understand the concept of a knock-knock joke?" line last night, it was both a shame and a blessing. I felt a bit bad for the guy!

"Alright, you've seen the show before! That was my favourite-... and it's the final show!"

But what followed was a hilarious bit of improvisation and it changed things up a bit, especially as Laura the sound engineer proceeded to make his job even harder with the timing of the sound effects that followed. It meant I was able to enjoy the porter scene as much as I did the first time, but like I said, I did feel a bit bad that his favourite line got taken away from him! (It wasn't me who called out, by the way.)

David bloody Tennant:

I've not seen much Shakespeare live (I want to remedy that, I have become completely obsessed), but I can believe people when they say David Tennant is arguably the greatest Shakespearean actor of his time. You can tell he feels and understands completely the meaning behind the words he is saying. He's not just reciting, not just reeling it off. The pauses, the intonations, the passion, sadness, grief, guilt behind every line just shows his deep understanding of the character and his innermost thoughts. On that stage, he is Macbeth.

What's more is you can tell he absolutely delights in it. Anybody who knows anything about DT knows he loves Shakespeare and it is glaringly evident when he is out on stage. He puts everything he has into it and it is wonderful to witness.

He is truly an amazing actor and a treasure and I have been so delighted to watch his career somehow continue to hit new highs of late. Everything he touches seems to turn to gold. As many have said before me, this really is David Tennant's world and the rest of us are just living in it.

The bows:

The reception this group of actors received at the end of the performance was phenomenal and no more than they deserved. Everybody on their feet, whooping, cheering. A lot of noise coming from such a small audience. The cast were both playful and tearful. To see some of the actors get a bit emotional was very touching and I hope that was, at least in part, due to the love and admiration pouring out of us and on to that stage.

An aside:

So I turn up to the theatre and head straight for the toilets on the first floor. There is one person waiting outside them because it's full inside so I wait too. Within moments, out pops DT from a set of double doors right in front of me. He quickly checks if there's anyone in the other set of toilets (there is) and disappears back through the doors again. It's fleeting, and the only other person in the queue is facing the other way and doesn't see. I keep quiet, obviously. It's just over half an hour until the performance is due to start. He's not in costume yet and the man just wants to go to the bathroom. My point is, I've now watched him live on stage in a very small theatre for approximately 7 and a half hours and at no point in that time have I actually concluded that he is real, except in those brief four or five seconds outside the toilets of the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden, when we're just two people who needed a wee.

#david tennant #davidtennant #macbeth #cush jumbo #donmar warehouse #donmarwarehouse

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moonandbreeze · 8 months

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This creator explained the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet so well, but I want to touch on the sentiment I see people repeat that R & J are not a romantic couple, or a couple that had any true connection.

When I began studying Hamlet for an essay at A-Level, I was looking at the way that Shakespeare portrays romance and affection between characters. Shakespeare is primarily a poet, and his use of language is very clever in the way he frames conversations.

When Romeo and Juliet first meet, we get a gorgeous passage of speech that is honestly one of my favourite Shakespeare scenes.

"ROMEO, [taking Juliet’s hand]:

If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET:

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this;

For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,

And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss."

Here, Romeo (a character established to be a poetic romantic) begins his conversation with Juliet with the first half of a sonnet. The sonnet is a poetic form used to write about love, and Romeo centres his half-sonnet around a conceit.

Throughout the opening of the play, Romeo's romanticism and poetic nature is continually shut down: either by his boisterous and overtly sexual friends or by his disapproving father. However, when he approaches Juliet with this vulnerability she returns it.

She picks up his meter and finishes his sonnet, also connecting with and expanding on his metaphor.

Romeo and Juliet love each other because they share a softness and connection that is despised by the world that they exist in.

Shakespeare does not shy away from romance in his tragedies, and I think that Romeo and Juliet have something genuinely strong, whether platonic or romantic. The tragedy is that they are not able to explore this at their own pace but instead forced to run away with each other by the societal stigma their relationship would be attached too.

#shakespeare #romeo and juliet #literature #literary analysis

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laiqualaurelote · 3 days

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star emoji (i'm on pc) for all the men and women merely players?

thank you for this ask for fanfiction director's cut! any director's commentary for all the men and women merely players is going to be insufferably long, especially as it involves literal directors, but I'm going to focus on one of my favourite parts to write, the Hamlet chapter.

stop! Hamlet time

The first thing to know about me is that I am a massive Hamlet nerd. I've studied it academically and watched it multiple times onscreen and onstage, in multiple languages, including Chinese and Lithuanian (I do not speak Lithuanian). Hamlet is a pivotal play in the structure of this fic - it is the "turn" in the magic trick of the "pledge, turn and prestige".

There are seven past/potential Hamlets in this fic: Nate, Isaac, Colin, Dani, Sam, Jamie and Roy. Even though Nate is the one who ends up actually playing Hamlet, what I wanted to set out here is that every single one of them could have been Hamlet, a very different kind of Hamlet, and it's rather a question of when in their lives they could have played this role. Hamlet is one of those paradoxical roles where you need a ton of experience to do it well, yet by the time you gain that experience you might be considered too old (textual clues indicate Hamlet is in his 30s). There are exceptions, of course: Ben Whishaw played Hamlet at 23, Ian McKellen at 84. I imagine Roy played Hamlet before he was ready, when he did not fully understand the role; Sam, similarly, is too young here and Jamie too immature. This is why the role eventually goes to Nate, who intrinsically understands Hamlet best of anyone in the company because of his own existential self-hatred. The one thing he lacks - and that Roy and Jamie have in abundance - is the main character syndrome that Hamlet possesses. He gains this in later chapters, but his insecurity around it leads to disaster. Anyway, my point is that there is no such thing as a single perfect Hamlet because all the Hamlets are valid.

The title of this chapter is "a little more than kin, and less than kind", which is the first line Hamlet speaks in the play. He's using it as a veiled insult of his mother's abrupt marriage to his uncle so soon after his father's death. This chapter deals very heavily with kin - in the sense of family ties, especially parental ones - and kind, in the sense of kindness but also in the sense of being like one another, of the same kind. I think a lot about how Shakespeare is performed, and what kinds of people get to perform Shakespeare, and this chapter explores that.

We open with Nate's dream of playing Anita in West Side Story (a nod to show canon), mixed with his memory of what he perceives as his father's rejection of him. (This is one of the earliest scenes I wrote for this fic, before we got more of an insight into Nate's actual relationship with his father, which was a lot less antagonistic than many of us anticipated). The epigraph to this chapter is from Gertrude to Hamlet: "Do not for ever with thy vailed lids/ Seek for thy noble father in the dust". This is what Nate is doing in this fic, and Ted, and Trent, and Jamie - whether they intend to or not, they've all got their heads down, seeking their fathers in the dust.

Used to be I didn’t know fuck-all about Shakespeare. Where I come from, if you talked about shit like that, they’d rip the piss out of you. I’d have done it myself. I got into a lot of fights back then. Someone’s trying to vex me, I beat the shit out of them. Sometimes I just get so mad and I don’t know where to make it go. You know? Nah, you don’t. Not by the looks of you. I’d probably have beat the shit out of you back then, if I’m honest.

This is Monologue No. 5, Isaac's (the monologues are numbered after the number each player wears in the show). The difference between a monologue and a soliloquy is that a monologue is a speech by a single character, but there may be others onstage; in a soliloquy that character is alone. ('To be or not to be' is strictly speaking not a soliloquy but a monologue, as there are other characters eavesdropping on Hamlet). The four monologues in this chapter all allude to Trent as the invisible, silent listener. In contrast, Jamie delivers Soliloquy No. 9 because he is truly alone.

Cry ‘Havoc’, and let slip the dogs of war. Well that’s fucking epic, Miss Jameela, I said. Well why don’t you take a look at the rest of it, she said. And when I spoke the words out loud it was like something I could pour my rage into. Nothing fancy about it. It were right on. Turned all that anger into something to lend your ears to.

Isaac's entry point to Shakespeare is Antony's speech in Julius Caesar. This was a parallel I had initially intended to give to Roy, who has a clear affinity for Shakespeare's soldier characters, but after Isaac's captain speech in Sunflowers, I realised it should go to him. Isaac, like Roy, has rage issues, which he learns to channel into his acting; like Roy, he comes from a working-class background (I imagine them both being from council estates in South London) and came to acting through community theatre, which is under threat in the UK today because of funding cuts (Christopher Eccleston wrote movingly about this after the closure of the Oldham Coliseum, which was where actors like Bernard Cribbins got their start).

I’m no orator, yeah? Just a plain blunt man that loves his friends.

This is nearly word-for-word what Antony says in his speech at Caesar's funeral, which ironically demonstrates that he is a skilled orator - he deliberately casts himself as "plain" and "blunt" against Brutus' sophistry and succeeds in alienating his opponent in the audience's eyes. This leadership quality of Antony's is reflective of Isaac's own captaincy style - he's a "plain blunt man that loves his friends", even if he can't bring himself to tell them in so many words, and that is how he keeps his team together.

Nate contemplates this. It’s not exactly that they’re short on skulls in the apocalypse. Probably be easier than making one out of papier-mâché, which he’s had to do for a lot of their less scavengeable props, and which is a bit trickier when you have to make your own glue. The problem, of course, is getting the flesh off. How long would you have to boil human bone to get it clean? Beard probably knows. Nate should check with him.

This is morbid - but also, I assure you, a completely accurate depiction of how single-minded props people can be.

Colin strikes a pose with his imaginary skull. “Alas poor Yorick! I knew his fellatio.”

This was an actual piece of graffiti I once saw etched above a fly floor.

I only figured it out when we did Twelfth Night in sixth form. It was an all boys’ school, so some of us had to do the girl roles. I got Viola, the lead. Thought that was tidy. Only at the end I had to kiss the boy playing Orsino.

Colin's monologue is based on a real anecdote, but in reverse; I knew someone who played Orsino in a mixed school, so he had to make out repeatedly with the girl playing Viola and it did absolutely nothing for him and that was how he discovered he was gay.

It’s funny that we’re doing this now. You a journalist, and me telling you all this. I fantasised about it sometimes, you know, telling everyone. I had nightmares about it. Could’ve gone on not saying anything after the world ended, but then I figured, if I might die any moment, I want to die having lived as a whole person.

I did not think I could top Colin's coming-out scene in the show, so I chose to let it have already happened in this AU. (I then retroactively decided it took place during the one and only time the Richmond Players performed Chekhov.) In contrast, it's implied that Trent still hadn't come out prior to the apocalypse, and that he is inspired to do so to Colin here.

“If he’d just made up his mind earlier it could all have been over by Act Two,” Roy is saying. “Macbeth would’ve done it. Othello would’ve done it. Fuck, even Romeo would’ve knocked Claudius off before making a puppet show about it.” “But that’s why they’re tragedies, you see,” Trent argues. “They’re all in the wrong story. Hamlet wouldn’t have killed Desdemona, or assumed Juliet was dead based on hearsay.”

I am quite fond of "the tropes are hungry and the hero is in the wrong goddamn story" discourse. There's no point complaining that Hamlet the play is too long and the hero needs to make up his mind. He can't, because he's Hamlet! that's the tragedy.

When I was a boy, there was this travelling theatre company that went around the vecindades, and they performed Shakespeare in the courtyards. We sat on our doorsteps and watched them. In the last scene they threw a big party, and they knocked on all the neighbours’ doors and brought them out to dance. I thought, if this is what theatre is like, then theatre is life!

The play in Dani's monologue is based on the vecindades staging of Othello by Arturo Ramírez and Martín López Cruz (an anachronistic reference, since it took place in Mexico City in 1988, meaning that Dani would not actually have been alive to see it). I'm fascinated by this particular site-specific staging because it was so calibrated for the vecindades, literally bringing the action to their doorstep - it was a staging that drew on the sense of community in these multi-family dwellings but also implicated said community in the tragedy, because they all ended up witnesses to Desdemona's murder. (A headcanon for this AU is that Dani played Desdemona opposite Sharon in the Richmond Players's gender-bent version of Othello).

On the one hand, Dani is the least likely candidate among the seven, because he is fundamentally too cheerful to play Hamlet. On the other hand, I think he would have turned the entire thing into a telenovela, which I for one would have loved to see.

“If your director, your lead actor and your stage manager are in a burning house right before your show is about to start, who do you save first?” Trent hazards: “The lead actor?” “Exactamundo, Aureliano Segundo! By the time the show’s about to go on, you don’t need the director any more, and your stage manager can take care of themself, or they wouldn’t be your stage manager.”

Again, a joke I've heard among production managers (who are always joking about disasters because a big part of their job is crisis prevention) but one that also reveals how what Ted views as a show of confidence might be interpreted by Nate as hurtful neglect. Also, a One Hundred Years of Solitude reference! No reason, I just always have Aureliano Segundo on the mind.

Did you know that the first recorded performance of Hamlet took place in Africa? English sailors performed it off the coast of Sierra Leone. Some people don’t believe this.

The earliest recorded performance of Hamlet was allegedly in 1607 on board an East India Company ship, The Dragon, lying off the coast of Sierra Leone, though the authenticity of the record has been called into question by some scholars. It would, however, have been performed at the Globe earlier in the 1600s. It's just interesting to think of the already-global nature of the play, even in its infancy, and of Shakespeare as a cultural accessory to colonialism.

I thought you have to sound British when you do Shakespeare, so I tried to do this RP accent, like I heard on BBC. And it was so bad. My father was helping me film the tape and he had this look on his face. I said “Daddy, I got to do it like this. They got to know I can play their roles the way they want.” And he said, “No, Samuel. You got to let them know that the way they want is your way.” So I did the monologue in my own accent, and we sent in that tape. And I got in.

Accent work in theatre is a sensitive subject that is quite close to my heart (though I live in the UK, I'm not British and don't have an English accent, which is something I'm always conscious of). Also: what does a decolonial approach to Shakespeare look like? Is it even possible? Is that what Sam's doing here? Questions, questions.

The fandom discourse around accents was also at the forefront of my mind when I was working on this chapter, because of an ask I had received about writing Jamie's POV - the asker was (rightly) concerned about how I would be depicting the Mancunian accent, as many in fandom were phoneticising it, which is considered offensive. This chapter contains five distinct character voices and for each one I listened to/read multiple sources to find subtle ways to depict the unique elements of that voice accurately and respectfully.

People always assume I want to play Othello. And I mean it is a great role, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want to do Othello. I don’t want to do Aaron. I want the roles that everyone is up for. I want to do Hamlet. I want to do Romeo. I want to do Lear.

This is, IRL, what Toheeb Jimoh is doing! He's played Romeo, he's playing Hal in Henry IV, I can't wait to see what he takes on next.

This is also a complete coincidence (I conceptualised this chapter before S3E7 aired) but Nonso Anozie, who plays Sam's father Ola, holds the Guinness World Record for the youngest actor to play King Lear professionally, aged 23 in a 2002 RSC production. That's why I made Lear the favourite play of Ola in this AU, and had Sam make the (otherwise quite off-beat) choice of Cordelia's monologue for his RADA audition tape.

You know, when Orlando first comes onstage, he is talking about his father, who is dead. I don’t know if you could tell, the first night when you saw me in the role, but I almost could not do it. I almost could not speak those lines, because I do not know if they are true.

While it is left open-ended in the fic if Sam's parents are still alive, I like to think that they are. I like to think that he makes it back to Nigeria eventually - perhaps even soon after his successful run as Hamlet in the fic's epilogue, when international ship travel is revealed to be back on the cards - and that he sees them again.

“Am I a coward?” says Nate softly. [...] “Who calls me villain?” It is as if Nate is outside himself, his mouth speaking words unbidden, his nerveless fingers letting the book fall. “Breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face? Tweaks me by the nose? Gives me the lie i' the throat, as deep as to the lungs – who does me this?”

When I was watching Nate's villain arc in S2, these lines from Hamlet blazed across my mind, and from that moment on I always subconsciously associated Nate with Hamlet, but a Hamlet who loathes himself to a nigh paralysing degree. Nate may fancy himself a villain of Richard III's ilk, but he simply does not have the evil chops. He's just insecure, indecisive, prone to seeing insult when there is none.

He’s watching himself now. He’s standing across from himself as he delivers the lines seared into his brain, fascinated and horrified. He watches his own throat work, sees the spit fly, feels it strike beneath his eye and roll down his cheek like a tear.

Mirrors are significant in Hamlet - it is, after all, the play that gave rise to the idea of art holding a mirror up to nature - and I wanted to find a parallel for Nate's ritual of spitting at his reflection, which was hard, because mirrors are not abundant in a post-apocalyptic AU. I found the answer in a stage direction from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, in which Hamlet spits at the audience, then wipes his face as if his spit has been blown back at him by the wind.

Nate's flashback to what really happened with his parents fills in the blanks for the reader - his father pushing him away wasn't rejection, but his last act of love for Nate. And Nate knows rationally that there was nothing he could have done to save them, but he will always be haunted by having been the one to walk away.

A terrible emotion swamps Nate's chest. A little more than hope, and less than fear. “The play’s the thing,” he says.

"A little more than hope, and less than fear" is a callback to the chapter title "a little more than kin, and less than kind".

The full line that Hamlet says is "The play's the thing/ Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." He's conceived a play-within-a-play to prove Claudius' guilt and provide him with the impetus to actualise this revenge business.

Throughout this chapter, the question of whether a play is "real" or "not real" comes up repeatedly - Colin: "I was scared of what it meant if it wasn’t acting. If it was real"; Dani: "And they say, but that is not true. Theatre is only pretend"; Sam: "Maybe one day I will see him again. And all this will only have been lines in a play". And of course a play isn't real, a play is only pretend. Ted Lasso isn't real. This fic isn't real. But that's not to say they're not holding up a mirror to our reality, the reflections in which have the power to affect us and shape us and change us in very real ways. That's the thing about plays. The play's the thing.

#fic ask game #procrasktination #ted lasso #ted lasso fic #shakespeare #hamlet #long post

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jarita123 · 4 months

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I am not sure why I postponed The Hollow Crown for so long. It is so amazingly done. And, of course, Tom Hiddleston looks absolutely stunning. Not only does he look good but he is such an amazing actor. Of course, we knew.

But he is so subtle in some points and then vividly theatrical in others. He knows very well this is theater on camera. He acts as if he was on stage but is very much aware there is a camera so tunes the "stage acting" a bit.

His scenes with Jeremy Irons, who is equally great, are some of the best. Simon Russell Beale, obviously, caught Falstaff amazingly....a guy who is basically a villain. Opportunistic, selfish, full of lies but in a charming way so everybody forgives him. Until "Hal" realizes this man is not and never has been, good for him. The last scenes in Henry IV., when Falstaff runs to the crown ceremony almost animal-like, hungry for power, only to be banished....that was probably my most favourite scene from both movies. Mention that Tom really knows how to develop a character just by changing a speech pattern, seems pointless. It is obvious. Also, how he manages to look somehow younger and more fragile in scenes with his father and then grows taller. Oh, and did anyone notice the soft finger touch between Hal and Ned? I know there were discussions about what these two were. I think they had it clear here - Tom is such a method actor that he would never do such a movement (like slide by the side of a finger of another person upon touch) without double meaning. It is a shame Shakespeare himself never wrote whatever happened to Ned and let him just disappear.

And Henry V.? Where to start? This more humble approach is perfect. It is obviously a TV production so you cannot do 1000 soldiers and make an epic battle. So make it a self-doubt, yet confident King story instead. I read a lot of criticism on youtube for the "crispianus" speech but if you just take it out of context, then of course you will be more impressed by the Brannagh/Olivier version (who wouldn´t, they were fantastic....it is Olivier ffs!). But shouting and making it an epic speech would not work here. So it is addressed to the "happy few" and it is done marvelously.

History itself cannot be changed so the ending is really sad and tragic, *especially* skipping there directly from the "wooing" scene, where Henry is seducing Catherine and makes her fall in love with him. Who knows what would have happened if he never died. But those were cruel times.

in any case, as much as I want to see Tom do also many other things, also some against type casting (however, one would say Loki is very much against type), he really should really be in historical clothes at least once in five years :D We got that, sort of, in The Essex Serpent , but add a long coat and sword to it and you have a perfection there :D

#tom hiddleston #the hollow crown

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jackredfieldwasmyjacob · 1 year

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hello everyone, the annoying spaniard is back to rant about the cultural references i'm seeing on my pokemon scarlet playthrough! here's my previous post in case you want to check it out :)

i have many thoughts about zapapico cause it's most likely based on almería and granada and my family is from there and yeah... anyways

the house design of that town, with them being excavated in the stone like that, is definitely inspired by the house-caves of guadix (granada) [pics 4-6], cuevas del almanzora (almería) [pics 7-9], and many others (those are just the ones i know about / been to). the sourrounding landscape reminds me of almería and its tabernas desert but, based on its location and the fact that there's another more likely desert in the other side of the region, i would say all of that area is based on los monegros desert (aragón) [pics 10-12], the other extremely arid area in the country.

and now i wanted to talk extensively (i'm sorry) about probably my favorite part of the game so far... team star poison squad.

to start, let's talk about the location. tagtree thicket is based on the oma forest in the basque country (i sadly forgot to take more pics of the location in the game so you only get this screenshot of my team before entering the base)

this might be a reach, but oddly enough i think it might be also at least partly inspired on sierra morena. i genuinely only got this connection cause at the entrance to the forest an npc (once again i forgot to take a screenshot of it) tells you to be wary of the forest, as the area is full of bandits and rascals and whatnot. that reminded me of the bandolero culture and the romantization of it, which flourished in sierra morena and other mountainous areas of andalusia. in particular there was a legendary bandolero called curro jiménez that got his own tv show (he was basically a spanish robin hood). there's even a cartoon in andalusian tv about a ragtag group of bandoleros with a bomb opening song. this is not actually too far off of the characterization of the leader of team star's poison team (my new favourite character ever)...

where to start with atticus?? (btw why is that his name in english?? in spanish he's named henzo which makes much more sense imo) let's start with the obvious: he's a ninja (which actually is an incredible design choice i'm kissing the pokemon team in the lips rn). but apart from that, everything else is heavily spanish inspired. basically, all of his persona is taken straight out of what's referred to as the spanish golden age (more or less the 16th and 17th centuries). i imagine his speech patterns and personality are an homage to shakespeare in the english version, but in the spanish one he speaks just like don quixote and actually has a lot of similarities to that character. for those of you who don't know much about don quixote, it is known as the greatest literature work in the spanish language ever and was written by miguel de cervantes (to help you situate all of this, he was a contemporary of shakespeare. in fact, in school we learn they died on the same day but on different calendars or something like that, it's a whole thing). in the novel, alfonso is a noble who spends all day reading chivalric romances to the point he at some points loses his mind and thinks of himself as a medieval knight that has to defeat evils and save people and whatnot. don quixote's speech patterns are mocked within the novel for sounding antiquated (just like atticus' speech sounds old for us). other direct references to don quixote are the fact that in the flashback the fairy dude comments on how atticus is a nerd of ninja and epic novels [pic 1], and the fact that during his presentation atticus says he is a 'desfacedor de entuertos' [pic 2], the same expression don quixote uses (it would kinda translate to 'problem solver' i guess?).

apart from don quixote, there's also references to playwright calderón de la barca, most noticeable through atticus' dramatic attitude (his first words are 'jumping to scene' [pic 1] and in his picture he is bowing to you [pic 3]), as well as one particular line after you defeat him where he says an extremely calderonian line [pic 2]

and that was all!!! sorry for the wall of text, i had many thoughts™️ for this one lol

here's next post !!!

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon sv #pokemon spoilers #pokemon sv spoilers

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simon-says-nothing · 15 days

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things i would like to know about my fellow writers!

tagged by @dwarfsized thank u beloved !! i will tag @sweetsuke and @caspercryptid !!

Last book I read:

currently reading howl's moving castle and war and peace, but the last book i finished was The Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, highly recommend if u support womens wrongs and trope reversal!

Greatest Literary Inspiration:

to be basic and gay, richard siken and shakespeare, but also maggie stiefvater. mwah.

Things in my current fandom I want to read but don't want to write:

@the-neon-pineapple's regency fic is fucking stellar but i would fail at the amount of research it needs. could not be assed to look up a houppelade. but god damn if spencer doesnt do it so so good

Things in my current fandoms I want to write but I think nobody would be interested in them but me:

i like leetle feel this abt. all my work! too much oc lore in my current project n afraid no one will give a fuck lmao

but i have been rapidly toying with bg3 the bear au. let me put astarion as a failed michelin star chef. im cooking i promise. pun intended.

You can recognize my writing by:

overuse of italics, character lore dumps, too many "and yet", too many "almost", and a gross misuse of spaces

My most controversial take (current fandom):

if you want a sweet husband of a lover you should have romanced wyll not astarion!

Current writing mood (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut):

about a 3! brain soup.

Top three favourite tropes:

your trauma did not make you kind, it made you cruel (or vice versa)

enemies to lovers (i am not immune)

blue gay/red gay

Share a random frustration:

IF I COULD JUST HAVE EVERY COMPANION'S SPEECH RHYTHM MEMORIZED WITHOUT SECOND GUESSING MYSELF AND WATCHING 3 HOURS OF THEIR DIALOGUE BEFORE WRITING THAT WOULD BE SO EPIC

#tag game #thank you leeetleee

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soapkaars · 2 months

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For the ask game: 31, 61, 62 and 98?

Asks come from this post: https://www.tumblr.com/soapkaars/742324378777403392/weird-asks-that-say-a-lot

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names?

I think I love this question now because I went through my selfies and I found so many fun outfits I’ve worn that I feel so much better about myself now! It’s hard to pick a favourite, but I think my favourite outfit range is between divorced Parisian femme and con-artist/disgraced nobility masc

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

Oh there are so many great films I’ve seen that it’s hard to choose one but here are few that I often mutter to myself:

‘Impossible? Napoleon said that word isn’t French!’ (Dr Gogol, Mad Love)

‘Morirá!’ (He will die) ‘murió’ (he died) ‘ha muerto’ (he is dead) from a video art installation by two old Spanish artists who shown sitting on two plastic chairs and listing off all the celebrities who had died or who will die

‘Tell their mother they’re doing quite well and they will leave us soon, yes they will be going on a journey… how did Shakespeare say it? Ah yes, From which no man returns.’ (Abbott from The Man Who Knew too Much, said with a typical Peter Lorre shit-eating grin)

The whole cerulean sweater speech from The Devil wears Prada

62. seven characters you relate to?

Definitely Abbott from the Man Who Knew too Much, that man is goals… as well as David Suchet’s Hercule Poirot. I’ve even got the arrogance and grandiosity down pat! For the rest I relate too much to loser men like Marcello Mastroianni in Eight and a Half and Joel Cairo from the Maltese Falcon. Other characters would be terrible women like Miranda Priestly from the Devil Wears Prada, Cruella de Ville (she only wanted to fulfill her vision of a fur coat made from puppies!), and Helen Sharp from Death Becomes Her (played by Goldie Hawn!)

98. favorite historical era?

Oh definitely the Weimar era - I am in love with Dadaism and artists like George Grosz and Otto Dix from that period of time. It fascinates me to no end and almost all of the art movements from that time have been a huge influence on my own style of drawing and art. Other close contenders are late 17th century Netherlands (1672, the ‘disaster year’ when the country was invaded by the French and a prime minister was eaten up by an angry mob who were also part of a coup d’etat carried out by the Prince of Orange), the French Revolution, and the Cold War era, particularly from the 70s to the 80s with the rise of counterculture and the fall of the Berlin Wall which released an explosion of art, design, architecture (post modernism babeyyyy!!)… I have this fascination with periods of transition and I always love learning more and more about them!

#ask soap #ask game #weird asks #thanks for the ask!#soapbox #my weird interests

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period-dramallama · 2 years

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The Lost King: movie review

TLDR: not as Ricardian as I was expecting, but definitely a Ricardian movie. Enjoyable, but the historical arguments were weak.

I want to grab the makers of this movie and shake them and shout RICHARD III IS AN IMPORTANT HISTORICAL FIGURE AND THEREFORE WORTHY OF FINDING HE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE “THE RIGHTFUL KING” NOR DOES HE HAVE TO BE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

My favourite part of the film was Harry Lloyd as the ghost of Richard III. He was just great.

One moment that i loved, being a nerd, was when Philippa goes to a bookshop and asks about books on King Richard III and the woman says “we have 8 titles” “I’ll take them” “which ones?” “all of them.” MOOD.

Given that Philippa Langley was a producer on this movie I was worried they’d portray her as flawless but she felt like a real person rather than a saint. Even Richard’s ghost is like “your interest in me is getting obsessive.”

I also liked the portrayal of ME. It felt like the moviemakers did their homework. The score at times was pretty overpowering and maybe a bit too whimsical.

“Tudor propaganda” this and “Tudor historians” that. This movie never acknowledges that anti-Richard Yorkists existed. Richard wasn’t just brought down by Henry Tudor, he was brought down by a Yorkist-Tudor coalition. Let’s not erase the teamwork of Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort!

There is one passing mention of Anne Neville, yaaaaaaay.

I dislike this movie’s implication that anti-Ricardians are ableist or they can’t see past Shakespeare. Ricardians aren’t the only ones reading sources!

Now on to the feeble historical arguments this movie allows to go unchallenged:

“Shakespeare made up the hunchback”.

No. Shakespeare took the idea of Richard’s back and the idea of him having an abnormal birth from Thomas More’s history.

“Richard III wasn’t a usurper but the rightful king! Edward was married to Eleanor Butler! His marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid!”

Even if Eleanor was the ‘true wife’ of Edward IV (and isn’t it convenient that both were dead when Richard argued this?) Edward V was his father’s chosen heir. Edward IV specifically said he wanted Richard to be Protector, not king. If Edward IV wanted Richard to be king or considered him the rightful heir...he could have named Richard. He was the king!

“Richard didn’t kill Edward of Warwick or his nieces or his sister’s seven sons!”

Duh he didn’t. They were behind him in the line of succession! And if Edward of Warwick was technically ahead of Richard in the line of succession.... that means Richard wasn’t actually the rightful king Philippa.

“In Henry VII’s first speech he doesn’t mention the princes’ murder, why? They were still alive!”

That’s a huge leap of logic oml. These two things...just don’t connect.

“Richard III established innocent until proven guilty!” “Richard wanted a more just society”.

We’re really not going to mention the time he had people disembowelled for talking shit about him?

“Richard was an advocate for the printing press when people thought it was the work of the devil”

OK, first of all, Edward IV was Caxton’s patron and early printed works were dedicated to Elizabeth of York so jot that down. Stop acting like Richard was THE innovator here. Also, work of the devil?? What’s the source for that??

“Richard provided the safe strong leadership the country needed”

His coup killed Richard Grey, William Hastings, and Anthony Woodville. With no trial. Then he was on the throne for 2 years, and there were 2 attempts to remove him and the second succeeded. How low are your standards??

Nevertheless, the movie wasn’t as Ricardian as I thought it would be. Philippa asks Richard’s ghost “did you have them killed?” and he doesn’t say no. He simply asks her what she thinks. Also one character says we mustn’t sanctify OR demonise people.

This movie has caused controversy because there’s a character we’re clearly meant to hate called Richard Taylor. He’s patronising, dismissive, and pretty ableist too, so ableist that Philippa calls him out publicly and educates him that “having a disability doesn’t make you evil.”

Unfortunately there’s a real guy called Richard Taylor, and I can see why he’s planning on suing for defamation. This was an easily avoidable problem! Just change the goddamn names, or have some proof that the real Taylor was a dick!

#richard iii #the lost king #ricardians for ts

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ijustkindalikebooks · 1 year

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I have so much to be thankful for when it comes to Shakespeare, the musical Something Rotten, new words added to our lexicon and phrases that we say everyday, and the one line in a play I did where I was a character called Goosefeather based on a Midsummer's Night Dream - the real high point of my acting career (hehe).

I recently finished reading and listening to the plays (I feel like if you can listen to or watch as you read the play, the words are far more interesting and really come to life from the page for you, as some of these need nuance especially to fully take them in).

To celebrate the bard's birthday, these are my favourites

Much Ado About Nothing - I loved the characters in this book and the speech given by Beatrice in this play is incredibly delivered. A speech that pushes the actor who delivers it as Beatrice boils over with rage at Benedick, this speech is something that needs to be heard in the beginning of Scene 4, Act 1. I highly recommend checking out this play, if you want an incredibly powerful female character.

A Midsummer's Night's Dream - Pretty much everyone's favourite Shakespeare, reading it you realise why this is. Characters that burst from the page and a plot that twists and turns, Elizabethan England really got lucky getting to see this one in the flesh straight from Will's quill. The character of Bottom is perfection here and the scenes with Oberon, Titania and Puck are never less than excellent.

Measure For Measure - I promise not all my favourites begin with the same letter. Measure For Measure for me stands out because of Isabella. Isabella is a young woman who plans to become a nun and then finds out her brother has been arrested and could be executed for getting his fiancee pregnant, to get out of this she is told let me sleep with you, and I'll save your brother and a bad bitch plot begins.

King Lear - He has such poor judgement when it comes to the character of those around them, and who can't relate to that? The story of a man who sees everything he built fall apart after giving his lands to everyone but the daughter her should, King Lear is definitely one of those stories which has incredible humanity and shows Shakespeare at one of his finest moments.

What are your favourite Shakespeare plays? I'd love to hear from you about your own standouts!

Others I feel like deserve a mention include Othello and Macbeth, which are two of of the most dramatic and brilliantly written plays in Shakespeare's oeuvre.

Vee xo.

#shakespeare #william shakespeare #plays #reading #booklr #bookblr #fiction #classics

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susandsnell · 1 year

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ok ummm ask hour i guess favorite scenes from shakespeare

CINTHIA BABE YOU ARE THE BEST

There are so many to choose from! But in no particular order, and non-exhaustively:

Easily my favourite is Benedick and Beatrice's love confession scene after the wedding disaster in Much Ado About Nothing. They're not only my favourite couple in my favourite play, but the absolute roller coaster from the beautiful confession to the honeymoon phase of Benedick promising to do whatever Beatrice asks of him and her immediately hitting him with "Kill Claudio." In the midst of all this romancing, her heart and soul are still with Hero, and all that's there to say has already been said better about "Would to God that I were a man/I would eat his heart out in the marketplace", but delivered right, it actually brings me to tears. There really is no better encapsulation of the rage women can feel on behalf of one another when they've been wronged like that.

It's very hard to pick a scene from Hamlet, but I'm gonna have to be cheesy and go with the ghost's charge with his mission. However you read it, it's peak atmosphere, suspense, spookiness, and the underlying idea that your own demons Will Compel You. It's peak theatricality.

Oddly, Titania and Oberon's argument in Midsummer Night's Dream always entertains me? I live for the messiness. Bonus points if Puck's reaction is "mom and dad are fighting ):" and this colours his subsequent choices.

Phoebe's monologues in As You Like It. This is totally not bias because I played her in class. I know the era requires Silvius wins her at the end, but her telling him to fuck off eloquently and asserting herself is quite lovely, and likewise, her falling for Ganymede gave teen coco Many Thoughts. She's a bad bitch and needs more love!

The one I really can't pick is Macbeth. Any time Lady M or the witches are around, seriously. Absolute slaying across the board. The magic, the violence, the horror. The whole damn thing.

Othello's speech about how Desdemona fell in love with him, and how Brabantio accepted and liked his company so long as he was a soldier and not a son-in-law is deeply poignant, too say nothing of sadly apt for generations to come on the manifestations of racism. The subtle way he distances himself from Others he describes are probably just Shakespeare's perspective, but can absolutely be read with the nuance of the internalization of respectability politics. It's incredibly powerful.

The resolution of Twelfth Night is just delightful any way you slice it. Orsino and Olivia are both completely all over Cesario/Viola, and it's gay any way you slice it. The brother-sister reunion can be so sweet, too!!!

St. Crispin's Day Speech from Henry V. Need I say more?

Lear's fantasy that Cordelia made it...that's what grief is, baby. It's the madness that comes from the human inability to process someone who should be here is gone, whatever physical remnants of them remain.

Romeo and Juliet: A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES!!!!!!!!!

#shakespeare #ask night #thank you babe!!! <3

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no-tresspassing · 11 months

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On Der Himmel Über Berlin - Wim Wenders 1987

Der Himmel Über Berlin (The Sky Over Berlin), commonly known as Wings Of Desire, was the first film I saw at the BFI. A film classic directed by Wim Wenders that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17th 1987, the film was restored in 4K and was rereleased at the BFI on June 24th 2022. Usually, when writing a review or analysis, I will add a summary of the content; but I would rather you see this for yourself, should you choose to do so. I will, however, tell you that the film follows two angels (Damiel and Cassiel) through the streets and skies of Berlin as they observe its inhabitants and their thoughts. While it is a romance, I think it focuses more on the ability to love than the actual romance between the characters (Damiel and Marion, the trapeze artist). Whilst Der Himmel Über Berlin isn’t a Lynchian level of absurd, and its camerawork doesn’t have the same close-ups as David Lynch’s work, I found that the detail in the sound of this film was equivalent or at least comparable to Lynch’s visuals. Having the ability to hear a person's thoughts brings an entirely different level of intimacy between character and viewer that I am yet to find elsewhere, to the extent that it felt almost intrusive to be watching and listening in on such private matters.

The forbidden love between Damiel and Marion is greater than that of Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet, perhaps because Damiel isn’t grooming a 13-year-old girl into marrying him after only knowing her for a few days. Instead, he becomes enamoured with and practically stalks an unknowing grown woman and decides to change the trajectory of his entire existence just for the possibility of her loving him back. I particularly enjoyed the scene in which Damiel lay on top of Marion while she slept and visited her in her dream while dressed in armour. Keep in mind that all of this takes place in a world where invisible angels exist among people, giving hope to those in distress who cannot physically interact with them, can only see in black and white and can only be seen by children. So maybe it is pretty absurd after all.

All jokes aside, I left the BFI after watching Der Himmel Über Berlin with a greater appreciation for the things in life that are so often and easily overlooked. In one particular scene, Peter Falk speaks to Damiel (despite not being able to see him, claiming he can “feel” Damiel there) about the small things he appreciates in life. “To smoke, to have coffee and if you do it together, it's fantastic…to draw…or when your hands are cold, and you rub them together.” While it confuses any bystanders, as Falk seemingly talks to nobody, I can see why Damiel decided to exchange his immortality for the human experience. After all, he as an entity had existed long before humanity, he watched its entire development, yet he had never lived.

While I was expecting the film's poetic and ethereal ambience, I was not expecting it to be funny. Furthermore, I think the use of this humour amid the whispers and pensive scenes was done very tastefully. You don't see a frustrated Peter Falk trying on copious amounts of hats until he finally finds one that he likes straight after you see a man jump off a high rise. You do, however, see Falk repeating the speech that he made Damiel word for word and shaking hands with thin air, thinking he was talking to an angel. Another thing that I was entirely not expecting was the presence of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds in the film. At first, I was excited to see The Boatman's Call vinyl used in a scene and hear The Carny and From Her To Eternity in the film's original soundtrack. Still, the band made a cameo appearance, performing a gig at which Damiel and Marion speak for the first time. I cannot deny that this made my face lit up with joy. In fact, my favourite part of the film was when we hear Nick thinking to himself, "One more song, then it's over, and I'm not gonna tell you about a girl,” just seconds before leaning forward to his microphone and proceeding to say “I’m gonna tell you about a girl.”

Really what I took away from this film was an appreciation for the beauty of life itself and the human experience as a whole and a deeper understanding of how little we know about the happenings of other people’s lives. While I do have more to say about this film, I fear I would either be repeating myself, or this would just become a list of things that I found funny with no real input on my part. Something that you have to have seen the film to understand, so for now, I think this is sufficient.

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More to come...

- Ida

#film #1980s #romance films #review #media analysis #wim wenders #peter falk #der himmel über berlin #wings of desire #classic film #80s movies #1987

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