Brit boys...

[fajrdrako]

commodorified and Alayne came over and we watched Othello, the 2001 version with Christopher Eccleston and Eamonn Walker. It isn't Shakespeare's version, though it follows the same basic story; it's set in a more or less contemporary setting (with lots of posh art deco sets), the language is modern, and there are a few significant changes to the plot. Thanks to rosiespark for pointing me to this one.

It's brilliant. I loved it. It made me want to hide under the sofa. It is very, very intense. Very scary, in the same sort of way Ian McKellen's Richard III is scary.

You remember that I love Christopher Eccleston with a deep and unconquerable passion, right? Well, now, all the more so. And yet he is so unmitigatedly bad you think he ought to be in the who-can-outdo-Satan competitions. Oh, yes, very Iago-like. This particular production - besides introducing an interesting racial theme - does what Shakespeare didn't: It gives Iago a motive.

And Eamonn Walker (last seen and loved in Oz) is a magnificent actor. A sexy actor, but then, everyone in this movie was strikingly sexy - and it manages to hit a few of my kinks that most movies miss.

Eccleston managed to be utterly sexy and utterly despicable at the same time. Some lines (like "Trust me") and some mannerisms made were simliar to the way Michael Rosenbaum characterizes Lex Luthor in Smallville. Richard Coyle as Michael Cass was charming and gorgeous and I knew him but couldn't place him at all - had to look him up on IMDb and see that he played Alcock in The Libertine.

For further diversion - and because the movie had us tied into traumatized knots - we watched Much Ado About Nothing, the 1973 Joseph Papp stage version. Sam Waterson was quite toothsome as Benedick - yes, quite lovely, though I could have done without the mustache - and Katherine Widdoes as Beatrice was so like the Beatrice in the Stratford production I saw last week that it was unnerving, right down to the white Edwardian dress she wore, and the curly hair tied up in the back, and the straight nose and large eyes.

I had two major problems with this production. One, I found it stilted. Perhaps it was because it was filmed from a stage production - stage diction sounds strange on scene. Maybe it was because they acted it in a certain careful way, but they sounded as if they were carefully reading every word, not living it.

The second problem was that the powers-that-be (Papp presumably) decided to stage this as if it were a production of The Music Man, setting it in midwest America c. 1910. I kept expecting Benedick to pull out a trombone and burst into song.

After Act One we decided to watch Act One in the Kenneth Branagh version, and somehow we got so into it, because it is so irresistibly good, that we neglected to switch back to the Sam Waterson version. I had half-forgotten how much I love the way the Benedick-Beatrice romance is done in that one, and that the "Kill Claudio" scene is played just exactly the way I always want it to be played - and I even enjoy the Dogberry scenes in this one, too.

After that, we watched part of Cambridge Spies, browsing through it on fast-forward and then stopping to watch the good bits. (I leave it to your imaginations to determine which parts the 'good bits' are. They generally involve Sam West, of course.)

After that, we watched the first wonderful episode of Jericho, with Robert Lindsay as Detective Inspector Michael Jericho. It's a little reminiscent of Inspector Morse; set in the 1940s, Jericho is similarly brilliant and beleaguered, with a bright young vaguely-Lewis-like constable as his assistant, and a delightful thickening plot with all the right kinds of Gosford Park-like suspects and plot twists.

I should perhaps mention - for those here who haven't known me long - that my love of Robert Lindsay is immense, dating from my days of being into Horatio Hornblower, at which time I wrote piles of Horatio/Pellew slash. The spark is still there.

Comments

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Yes, I recently rented the Kenneth version of Much Ado.

Richard Coyle was also in Coupling, and for that reason I burst out laughing every time he appeared in The Libertine.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Richard Coyle was also in Coupling

commodorified and Alayne were having the same problem. I couldn't watch Coupling - had a look at it for Jack Davenport's sake, and couldn't stand it for more than five minutes. I have a lot of trouble with TV comedy.

Richard Coyle, however, is quite delightful.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Coupling was ok, as long as Richard Coyle was in it. Once they took him out, it sucked.

He was so slapstick, it was difficult to see him in any other role without laughing. Especially as Alcock. *snort*

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Weli, you know, I'm really glad I wasn't spoiled for him as both Alcock and Michael Cass. I thought he was great in both roles.

[msilverstar]

I do like your reports, very inspiring. The Branagh/Thompson Much Ado film was surprisingly good, even the Dogsberry parts which I tend to dislike.

My dad was so interested in the whole Cambridge Spies thing, he would have loved that movie. Thanks to you, I put it on my netflix queue, and will be missing him every moment I watch it. I might go for Jerico too, but the Hornblower films are so intense I tend to have trouble watching them.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I do like your reports, very inspiring.

What a nice thing to say. Thank you. I do love talking about what I watch. (Or read. Or whatever.)

The Branagh/Thompson Much Ado film was surprisingly good, even the Dogsberry parts which I tend to dislike.

Agreed. It had just the right touch in just about every scene.... Before Branagh made Henry V I thought it was impossible to make decent filmed version of Shakespeare. I've already gently ranted about how violently I was offended by the Olivier version of Hamlet when I was 15 or so. I thought it was an abomination. Most filmed versions of Shakespeare's plays are like the Sam Waterson movie, basically just bad films, full of Shakespeare's wonderful words, poorly delivered.

Branagh, bless his talented heart, understood what makes a good movie and showed me that good filmed versions of the plays can exist. He isn't the only one who has done it, either - I liked the Ian McKellen Richard II and (with some reservations) the Anthony Hopkins Titus.

[wanderinunicorn.livejournal.com]

I've got Titus a year ago but I haven't see it until now, becuase I've read on the imdb how terribly it is - I mean now the violence in it. I'm to sensitive, it's only a movie.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The first time I saw Titus Andronicus it was at Stratford - in the Festival Theatre - it was really quite a magnificent production. The set and costumes were reminiscent of Frank Frazetta's art, so it all looked like a sword and sorcery fantasy - lots of green marbles and bronzes, and hunky men in kilts. That gave it an over-the-top ambience that worked very well with all the violence and nastiness (rape, dismemberment, cannibalism, and so on). My favourite line: "Death and rape are welcome in my house."

Knowing the story fairly well threfore, I was prepared for the Anthony Hopkins version - I knew what was going on, and I thought they made it very stylish. It was scarier and more horrific than the stage version for sure - because of the more serious tone - and nothing can really hide the ghastly content of that play. The movie was not as entertaining as the production I saw on stage, but still good, still well worth seeing. Shakespeare at his most outrageous.

[wanderinunicorn.livejournal.com]

I will really try to watch it; on the imdb someone who had watched the movie in the night wrote, that he/she was never so happy to see the sun in the morning again; so I thought before it happens to me I will better let it be.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, I can't pretend that Titus Andronicus is a happy romp. It makes Othello look cheerful. It is ridiculously, outrageously nsty, violent, and fully of things that will squick you. It would be difficult to explain why I like it as much as I do - a few good lines ("who doth disturb my meditations?" is another one that sticks in my brain), some powerful images, a sense of really cutting loose with the barbarisms.

Watch it in daylight, and have a light comedy on hand to watch later.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you enjoyed yourself, in different ways with different films. But me makes the tought of so much in one go extremely tired. Can you take it all in, doesn't it 'get in the way' of ane and other? Maybe it is just my limitations. (But I will be on the look out for Othello version, even though it sounds like precisely the scaryness I cannot handle very well.

Call it social and emotional scaryness versus the simple physical threat of monsters of buildings on fire and the like, I get scared but not into my core. Seeing a human being or a society doing something very nasty to somone I've start to like, and especially if I see it common and the victim to be not. Or even worse, if the vistim to be knows but 'has to' go along because of inner code of honor, love or other believe system.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Can you take it all in

Yes. In fact, we were sort of on a roll... The momentum of one made us want to see the next. After OthelloM, we felt we needed some sort of recovery. And Jericho was so good, not readjustment was necessary. The shows pulled us in.

I will be on the look out for Othello version, even though it sounds like precisely the scaryness I cannot handle very well.

Yes, it really zapped straight into some deep point in the psyche - for me at least - you want some relief, that the good honest loving people will not be destroyed (morally and physically) by the plotting and the lies, but of course at the same time you know they will be, and it's - not just awful, it's unthinkable - but it happens anyway. I thought the most awful part was seeing Othello lose his self-confidence and his sense of judgement as he fell for Jago's lies. Once he'd lost that, his world just crumbled, and it was so plausible - but so false.

Yup, I agree with all your comments on what is really scariest. Good people being destroyed, or destroying themselves.

[acampbell.livejournal.com]

This may sound ridiculous to you, but when I first saw MR as Lex in the first couple of SV episodes, I was convinced he would make a marvelous Iago.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

when I first saw MR as Lex in the first couple of SV episodes, I was convinced he would make a marvelous Iago.

Well, yes. He would. I'm not saying that Lex is Iago-like, but that Michael Rosenbaum has just the right skills and look as an actor. And in some ways, Clark in an Othello type too. I was thinking about that as I watched - about the clues that Iago was bad and the reasons I have had such difficulty in seeing Lex as bad. (I still automatically see things from Lex's point of view.)

[litalex.livejournal.com]

yes, 'cause Lex is so much more of a rounded and human character than Clark is on Smallville, and it's not just because Clark is an actual alien. That and MR is a better actor, too.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, Michael Rosenbaum is a magnificent actor, who makes Lex Luthor a complex, layered, interesting person - more than the actual scripts do. This is unfortuante, because it leaves me thinking that there is a lot of unused potential there that the TV show just isn't going to touch.

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

You know, Robert Lindsay was in the Much Ado About Nothing that was part of the BBC series of all Shakespeare's plays -- done in the 80s, I think. I imprinted on it, and it became my favorite Much Ado, with Branagh's just second.

I keep waiting for it to be released on DVD. And waiting.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Robert Lindsay was in the Much Ado About Nothing that was part of the BBC series of all Shakespeare's plays -- done in the 80s, I think. I imprinted on it, and it became my favorite Much Ado

I think it may be my favourite too - I'll have to see it again to decide whether I like it as much as the Branagh one, or possibly more. I like the casting of Robert Lindsay as Benedick more than Branagh, I think, and Cherie Lunghi is great as Beatrice. (But then, so is Emma Thompson.) I don't remember the rest of the 1984 BBC cast; I saw it as a very fuzzy videotape from the public library, and have been longing ever since to see a better copy. Yes, bring on the DVD! I'd buy it in a flash.

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

saw it as a very fuzzy videotape from the public library, and have been longing ever since to see a better copy.

I'll take that as a hint to hurry up and post the dvd package.

;P

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

LOL - I still have plenty to watch and listen to on the one you already sent. I am basking in bliss. Which is not meant to urge you to delay, you understand...

We were drinking Lady Grey Tea while we were watching "Othello". I thought you would appreciate knowing that.