World Enough and Time

Watched the film of the David Tennant version of Hamlet this evening with maaseru and Pim.

What a show. Keep in mind that I adore Shakespeare with a passionate passion, and Hamlet is my favourite of his plays. I've seen a lot of Hamlets, from the embarrassingly terrible to the brilliant.



I'd heard Tennant's performance was good, and I'd also heard it was over the top - that Tennant starts on such a note of hysteria, or madness, that he left nowhere to go for the emotions to escalate.

It must have been someone who really liked understated performances who said that, since I thought Tennant was just about perfect. I'm not saying he was the best of all Hamlets, or that there could be a definitive Hamlet, or that I haven't seen other great versions: I am saying that I found Tennant to be expressive, interesting, sympathetic, dynamic and utterly natural in the role.

( A few specific comments... )

From fannish5: Aug 29, 2008 - Name 5 characters you think are often misunderstood by fans.

1. Torchwood - Captain Jack Harkness. As with all the Torchwood characters, fan characterization puts him all over the map - which is, of course, fair enough, but I have a very strong notion of what his character is and I find the variances jarring, especially when Jack is depicted as cruel or uncaring. I see Jack as very much of a "what you see is what you get" kind of character. By nature, a sweet, loving man with a sense of mischief and and curiosity about other people; forced by war and circumstances into the military when young, which made him develop an inner toughness and pragmatism as necessary. He cares very much about others, and feels protective about the world. He tries endlessly to make reparation for the time he almost destroyed humanity in "The Doctor Dances", and to make the Doctor proud of him.
   
   
2. Doctor Who - The Doctor. Here I think we simply have a difference of interpretation, depending on the fan, and a divergence between those who became fans of the new Doctors (Nine and Ten) and those who came to know and love the Doctor from earlier periods, especially those who did so in childhood. I see the Doctor as much less alien, psychologically and physiologically, than many do: it's his humanity that appeals, not his alienness.
   
   And he's very sexy. Flirty, even, in all the wrong ways.
   
   
3. Batman - Batman or Bruce Wayne. I have heard many fans say that Batman is insane - and I couldn't disagree more. I interpret Batman as the sane man in the insane world, who takes on himself the dangers he does not want other to undergo because he feels protective of his city. He is obsessive because he needs to be, but it's the obsession of genius, not of madness.
   
   
4. The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett - Francis Crawford of Lymond. There are fans who love and appreciate Lymond. There are other fans (and readers who do not become fans) who see him as petty, whining, self-obsessed, rude, unkind, and arrogant. Except for the last point, they are totally wrong.
   
   
5. Shakespeare - Hamlet. It never would have occurred to me to include the Prince of Denmark in this list, except that over the last few years I've met a number of people who don't like the man for a litany of reasons - all of which I think are a misunderstanding of the character. Hamlet is the perfect gothic hero: dark, romantic, funny, insightful, intelligent, judicious, and caring.