Big Death Scenes--it's a fair cop. Sigh.

I've read and re-read "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God," but I've yet to see the mini-series. It's probably at teh library, but I'd want to sit down by myself to watch it, so I can mutter to myself without having to explain things to Hubby.

Backwards! Claudius predates!

I haven't had TIME to watch the DVDs!

Is Claudius skewered? Because it's the skewering that makes me giggle. If so, that's a three-fer!

Claudius gets dosed with poisoned mushrooms. No skewering.

Connie, see, I always read Hamlet with an eye toward the history he was playing with. So the subplots there - the Players just kill me, and the incredible layers of hoyay in there - were never really more than a mild distraction to me; of course, the play itself needed an editor, I thought (waits to be struck by lightning for heresy).

My problem with Ophelia is that I never once bought her as in love with Hamlet, or Hamlet as in love with her. It was the one of Shakespeare's "great" tragedies that I thought got away from him, in a lot of levels.

But the core - murder! ghosts! implied son-mother incest longing! impled hoyay between Hamlet and (insert young male character of choice here!) obsession! - is just a great little chunk of melodrama. I wish he'd left it that way, and trimmed it up a bit.

dammit, past midnight. Unfortunately, once I passed 40, sleep no longer became optional. Good night, all.

Is Claudius skewered? Because it's the skewering that makes me giggle. If so, that's a three-fer!

Bad fungi, which he basically knows is coming. But he plays it exactly as he played Claudius, right down to the stammer. Perfection.

Dudes, you have GOT to see the miniseries. There has never been anything quite like it. I mean, ever. Period. It's fucking brilliant and totally nuts and the scene in which John Hurt's barking mad Caligula reaches out and kisses his grandmother Livia goodnight - with one hand on her breast and his tongue down her throat and Sian Phillips' eyes (she played Livia) going wide with shock, because Hurt hadn't told her he'd be doing it - oh, lordy, lordy.

edit: OH! And I mustn't forget: Patrick Stewart, with HAIR! Playing Sejanus, and talking sexy-dirty.

When we wrote our ST:TNG teleplay, "Guinan in Wonderland", we had the head of the Romulan fleet confronting Picard. And we called him Sejanus.

Dudes, you have GOT to see the miniseries. There has never been anything quite like it. I mean, ever. Period. It's fucking brilliant and totally nuts and the scene in which John Hurt's barking mad Caligula reaches out and kisses his grandmother Livia goodnight - with one hand on her breast and his tongue down her throat and Sian Phillips' eyes (she played Livia) going wide with shock, because Hurt hadn't told her he'd be doing it - oh, lordy, lordy.

I know. My mother has kindly forced her boxed set on us. They have the coffee table book on it. They're quite the fans.

I think I am the weird person who had LESS trouble reading Ulyssess (though I did read it for a class in Irish Renaissance Literature) than Watership Down.

The advantage I had for Ulyssess was that it was the professors thesis topic, and he had written his own guide. I liked the gude almost better than the book. For me the pleasure of Ulysses was the pleasure of analysis rather than just the pleasure of reading. It was like digging for buried treasure, finding all the referances.

Also, I never have finished Watership Down.

I think I am the weird person who had LESS trouble reading Ulyssess (though I did read it for a class in Irish Renaissance Literature) than Watership Down.

Ulysses (probably Joyce generally, and very possibly -- at the risk of overgeneralizing -- much Modernism) would probably benefit from being read in class, or with some other guide.

Unfortunately, Deb, Connie was asking about Hamlet. *g*

Ah! For a second, I thought Deb was talking about Brannagh's Hamlet, and I was terribly sad that she would now have to be dead to me. But his Henry V's a whole nother thing.

For film versions of Hamlet, I like the Almereyda (Ethan Hawke) one, because it got this:

of course, the play itself needed an editor, I thought (waits to be struck by lightning for heresy).

exactly right. It strips the play down to its bare bones and truly adapts it, instead of just dressing its actors up in period outfits and slapping itself on the back for doing such an Important Shakespeare Play.