As I just learned, while grading y'all's final papers: apparently there is a term for the genre that includes works like Indigo and A Thousand Acres. It
is "parallel novel." We all knew this was a thing, in these fallen
times of ours (but then, didn't James Joyce do it too?), but now it's an
official genre. More details here.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Coming soon: Almereyda and Hawke do Cymbeline
For those who just can't get enough of Ethan Hawke and Michael Almereyda... they're doing a Cymbeline! Trailer and a bit of commentary here: http://screenrant.com/cymbeline-trailer-2014/
Will be interesting to see how they do this less-commonly-adapted play.
Will be interesting to see how they do this less-commonly-adapted play.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Othello CSI
Context
·
Produced by Masterpiece Theater
·
First shown in 2002 on PBS
·
Set during Tony Blair’s administration
o
Had a government highly concerned with its own
image
·
Screenplay by Andrew Davies
o
Changes the setting to New Scotland Yard in 1990s
London
o
Originally wanted to modernize the Tempest, was told
he must chose a tragedy, went to get a drink, had the idea to make Othello
Police Commissioner
Intertext
·
Othello,
by William Shakespeare
o
Othello is a Moor married to Desdemona
o
Othello promotes Cassio instead of Iago,
prompting Iago’s rage
o
Iago takes Desdemona’s handkerchief and plants
it among Cassio’s belongings to convince Othello his wife is not loyal
o
Othello convinces Roderigo to attack Cassio
o
Othello smothers Desdemona
o
Othello finds out about Iago’s involvement and
hurts but doesn’t kill him
o
Iago and Othello are arrested
o
Othello commits suicide
o
Cassio is ordered to punish Iago
·
The Murder
of Stephen Lawrence, a documentary
o
a black teenager was murdered by racist thugs in 1993
o
the original investigation was bungled
o
nobody was successfully prosecuted
o
the police were deemed institutionally racist
o
Ever since then the police have been making huge
efforts to clean up their image, but there hasn’t been an increase in the
number of black and Asian-origin policemen being promoted into high positions
·
Richard III, a movie version by Laurence Olivier
o
Lets the villain, Urquhart, talk directly to the
audience
o
Inspires Davies to do the same with Jago
Subtext
Othello –
·
simplified and characters changed
o
Othello is a black police officer married to
Dessie
o
Prime Minister promotes Othello instead of Jago,
prompting Jago’s rage
o
Othello gives Jago his bathrobe to test for
Cass’s DNA
o
Othello attacks Cass
o
Jago tells Othello that Cass’s DNA is on the
bathrobe
o
Othello smothers Dessie
o
Othello finds out about Jago’s involvement and
tells him to leave
o
Othello commits suicide
o
Iago is promoted to Othello’s position
·
Dessie falls in love with Othello after
interviewing him, hearing his story
·
Othello’s bathrobe is the same as Desdemona’s handkerchief,
but Dessie gives Othello the bathrobe
·
Othello does not overlook Jago, but he steals a
job that Jago badly wants
·
Roderigo and Brabantio don’t exist or aren’t
present onstage
·
Jago tells Cass that Dessie and Othello aren’t
in love, that they have a stage marriage (Cass then flirts with Dessie and says
he fancies her)
·
Lulu (Emilia) suspects Jago, but never speaks up
·
Othello smothers Dessie almost killing her,
before he kills her entirely
·
Jago gets away without anyone realizing his
involvement
Stephen Lawrence –
·
made older and more innocent
o
The Police Commissioner is recorded making
racist remarks and is forced to resign
o
Police raid the home of Billy Coates, a middle
aged black man, while looking for drugs
o
Billy taunts the officers
o
Three officer proceed to beat Billy to death
o
A fourth, younger officer stands by in shock
o
People riot, and Othello gives a speech to calm
them, promising justice
o
Othello is promoted to the position of police commissioner
o
Jago convinces the fourth officer to be a
witness in court
o
The night before the trial, Jago gets the
officer drunk, knowing he will take sleeping pills and die
o
Without a witness, the trial results in no
convictions
·
Other officers scorn the fourth officer, showing
how racist the department is
·
Othello delivers an eloquent speech to the
public, like his speech to the senate in Shakespeare (in both, he later
descends into a more crude individual)
·
Similar to Trayvon Martin case, where George
Zimmerman was not convicted
·
Jago is racist (we know because says so during
multiple asides in the movie)
o
He uses the racists officers on trial to get in
touch with some neo-nazis who he asks to attack Dessie and scare Othello into
assigning Cass to protect her
An Interview with Andrew Davies
CSI "The Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District"
Context:
· Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
o
1818-1883
o
Born in Orel/Oryol, capital of a province of
that same name in Central Russia
o
Mother was a rich landowner
o
Objected to his mother’s treatment of household
serfs
o
Studied the faculty of History and Philology at
the University of St. Petersburg
o
Admired Alexander Pushkin
o
Studied for a time in Germany (1838), from then
on he spent very little time Russia
o
Sympathized with the lower class
o
Met and had a somewhat tempestuous relationship
with Tolstoy
o
Was an advocate of Westernization
o
Fathers and Sons
§
1862, his masterpiece
§
deals with nihilist philosophy and issues of
both personal and social rebellion
o
“Was a critic of his own generation’s Hamletism
and of the fundamental injustice of serfdom on which Russian society was
based.”
· Sketches from a Hunter’s Album/A Sportsman’s
Sketches
o
Originally published in the Russian journal The
Contemporary between 1847 and 1851
o
After they were published in a separate edition
Turgenev was arrested and exiled to his estate of Spasskoye
o
About the rural world of Russia before the
emancipation of the serfs in 1861
· Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District
o
A study in the “Hamletism” of Turgenev’s
generation
o
Turgenev refers to the Hamlet character as being
at the “extreme limit of unhappiness.”
o
His self-indulgence is the tragedy
§
“…reflects the tragic loss of illusions and fond
hopes experienced by Turgenev’s generation as a whole” (Penguin 11)
§
“His [the Hamlet’s] final reconciliation is in
its own way as bitter an acceptance of social inequality and complete
obliteration of individuality as is the peasant’s subservience to his master.”
(Penguin 11)
· Shchigrovsky District
o
In the Kursk Oblast (federal subject) of Russia
o
Western Russia
o
Part of the steppes
Intertext
· La Coupe et les Lèvres (The Cup and the Lips) –
Aflred de Musset
o
“Mon verre n’est pas grand, mais je bois dans
mon verre”
§
My cup is not large but I drink from it
· Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences
o
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
o
Purpose of the encyclopedia is to describe how
spirit or mind develops itself
· Das Lied von der Glocke
o
Johann Christoph von Schiller
§
Friends with Goethe
Subtext
· “In the first place, I speak French as well as
you, and German even better; secondly, I have spent three years abroad…”
o
-Boastful (not afraid praise himself as
intellectual, even smarter than other people)
· “…and was married at home to a consumptive lady,
who was bald but a remarkable personality”
·
“And, too, strange to say, I liked Sofya best of
all when I was sitting with my back to her, or still more, perhaps, when I was
thinking or dreaming about her in the evening on the terrace.”
o
-X’s love is never obvious, similar to Hamlet’s
love of Ophelia, especially when he knows that Claudius and Polonius are
watching
· “I remember how they buried her. It was in the
spring. Our parish church was small and old…”
o
-Sofya’s funeral is not a big ordeal, similar to
Ophelia’s. The only people who truly attend it are those of the lower class
(clowns/grave-diggers)
· “It is only [after her death] that I do her
complete justice. It’s only now, for instance, that memories of some evenings I
spent with her before marriage no longer awaken the slightest bitterness, but
move me almost to tears”
o
-Like Hamlet, is somewhat blind to the present
and is only truly remorseful after the fact.
· X’s mother, like Gertrude, does all that she can
for him but it isn’t quite enough
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