Saturday, March 27, 2010

review: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

I will say this: I love Shakespeare.

I will admit this: It takes a lot for me to understand him. I can't just go see a Shakespearean play and completely enjoy it. I can understand it, and I can like it, but I am of the opinion to appreciate the complex genius of Shakespeare's work, you have to study it. It is not just the language. But it was written at a completely different time - and that carries a lot with it. Like I said, it is not just the language - because no one talked in iambic pentameter. What I mean, is that if you want to understand everything about the play - you have to know a lot about myths, Elizabethan jokes and turns of phrase, as well as history (knowing what is true, what is not, and what was believed), and a vast knowledge of the culture of the time and before that time.

That being said, I will also admit something else: I know next to nothing about Tom Stoppards work - except for this play, which is based on Shakespeare. I have tried to watch this movie once before, and I was not successful. I don't think my full concentration was in it, and I just got so damn lost.

So, I am here to watch it again. Just me in my room watching it on my laptop with no other distractions. Hopefully, with the help of subtitles and my undivided attention, I will come out with a better appreciation of a very well respected comedy. (Although, I don't know how close this is to the original stage version.

So here goes...
Fuck. No subtitles.
Back to the show ....

End of the show -

Absurdism why do you mock me?! I understood a good deal of it, and I liked a fair amount, but in the end I am still utterly perplexed. What the...?

I can see now that I would have to study this flim/script before I can even try to understand it. I mean, I get the plot, but I don't have a concept of the story. I will only get that with study. So, I choose to keep this one unscored. When I understand it, then I will judge it. But until then it remains an utterly illusive piece of "what the hell was that?"

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