I was less than thrilled about taking my Shakespeare class this semester. Reading Romeo and Juliet in ninth grade had left a bad taste in my mouth, and A Midsummer's Night's Dream was made nightmarishly boring thanks to my senior year English teacher. However, Dr. McClain has changed my mind about Shakespeare entirely. I'm reading Shakespeare with much more ease, and I'm actually enjoying it. I owe my newly established appreciation to Titus Andronicus, which is credited as one of Shakespeare's worst plays ever. Go figure I'd cling to the lousy piece of drama; I'll leave the Hamlet stuff to the rest of you suckers.
Titus Andronicus is an over-the-top laughable gore fest. However, after recovering from laughter, one can see that as far as theme goes, there is actually a lot at work in the play. I honestly CAN'T say it's one of Shakespeare's best, but I do think it deserves much more respect than it currently receives. Also, practically every character is a villain, so it's naturally great!
Over the weekend, I rented Titus, Julie Taymor's film adaptation of the play. We had started watching it in class during the week, but I had to see it again. Most of the reviews I read criticized Taymor's work, but I thought it was an incredible interpretation. Not only did Taymor refrain from contorting Shakespeare's work into some hideous misinterpretation, but she also brought new life to it through fantastic artistry. Titus, despite its gore, is simply a beautiful film to watch.
The cast makes the work even more enjoyable. Anthony Hopkins brings some of his Hannibal character to the film, and Jessica Lange perfectly captures the loathsome Tamora. However, my favorite characters in the film adaptation turned out to be Saturninus, the ego-centric Roman emperor and Chiron, a, umm, sicko. Chiron is played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who plays bad boy roles so well. He's also pretty easy on the eyes, and you'll enjoy him even more if you have a thing for men in ladies' undergarments. And of course, there's Saturninus, played by the incredibly charming and camp Alan Cumming. Cumming plays Saturninus as a snotty brat of an emperor, and his portrayal is soooo good, I almost forgot about his resemblance to Mr. Herman.
I suppose that's all... I just wanted to plug this great piece of drama and its recent film re-make. Titus is definitely going on my Christmas wish-list.
I must admit that I wasn't too keen on my film class when it first started. It reminded me too much of the art classes I took when I was an art major, and I didn't think my mind was fit to think "artistically" --- when really, art and literature can be read in so much the same way. However, a few thought-provoking films later, I'm a film nut, and I'm afraid it's beginning to show...
I had a strange dream early in the hours of Wednesday morning. I dreamt that I had gathered a collective of friends to work on a giant, wall-sized piece of art work, reminiscent of Julian Schnabel. There was so much energy coming from this creative process, I decided to document it and then send the film to Cannes. So there I was, running around with an old-fashioned camera, taping every crucial step that went into production of this artwork. There was then some kind of odd transition in my dream, and I next remember sitting on the sidewalk, waiting for art supplies to be delivered. And then, I looked up, and lo!, Marc Jacobs was standing above me. I screamed and asked Marc if I could please have his autograph, but when I pulled out my notebook to have him sign a page, I couldn't find a blank piece of paper. I spent what felt like hours tearing through this notebook looking for a blank page, and finally, I turned to a frustrated Mr. Jacobs and had him sign my notebook.
I tried to analyze this dream online, but unfortunately, "film," "art," and "Marc Jacobs" are not listed in the dream dictionary. "Celebrity" was the only word I found that I thought pertained to my dream, and its possible meaning scared me. So, any dream analysis you might have is invited, but as of now, I'm taking this as a sign that I'm meant to be a successful director who will have wickedly talented fashion designers make the costumes/wardrobe.
Anyway, that dream is just one of the more recent examples of how film is taking over my life. I can no longer watch a movie, or even a music video, without analyzing it shot by shot. Actually, I don't have time to watch music videos thanks to my class workload this semester, but I fortunately caught the new White Stripes' video while preparing a bagel for myself this morning. The White Stripes always have innovative videos, but this new one for "The Hardest Button to Button" is actually pretty simple. It kind of reminds me of Ballet Mechanique. Oooh!
I guess the bottom line of all this is that I'm getting too wrapped up in this film stuff. All I know is that my parents will kill me if I decide to become a filmmaker. Shhh... I'll wait to spring this on them until I find out I've been accepted.
And now for some classic one-liners from last night's film class:
"That's the power of the copy/paste and what it can do to your work."-Julie
"Is there a lot more Rotwang is this film?"-the dry kid in the back, asking about the 30 minutes of extra footage in Metropolis
"He was the burglar in Home Alone -- Marv?"-the dry kid, once again
"I love Home Alone!"-I missed this one, but Julie elbowed me to write it down
"The -jeet jeet jeet!- noise!"-Dr. Arnzen, reproducing the background music in Psycho
"They have those, but... I mean a really wild one."-Dr. Arnzen, on hovercrafts
There were many, many more witticisms shared, but I was paying too much attention to my REAL notes to take them all down. And actually, Dr. Arnzen did a great job of illustrating last night's chapter in Giannetti's book for us. We were studying the use of "sound" in film, and I think Dr. A made more sound effects and weird noises in last night's class than I've ever heard him make before. Bravo, bravo!
