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beccaelizabethI tried to watch the Mel Gibson Hamlet.
I know, you all warned me. But it was the only one left in the library. (Today my reservation came in. Tomorrow I can go get Branagh again. I'll need it, to scrub my brain out.)
It's not just that Mel Gibson is a truly atrocious actor - and he is, really, very, badly.
It's everything. The set design and costume design and the way they butchered the text, dropped it in a blender, and threw random chunks of it at the screen in any old order. And then made stuff up. *shudders*
Look, I know you need to leave stuff out or have a LotR bum numbing edition, but you can't go making up scenes that Shakespeare didn't have. They will be worse. It's just this thing that happens when you're playing with the most respected text in the canon.
I realise that for movies they like to change the scene a lot more than plays do, but since this is a stage play what you end up with is a lot of background changes as characters walk and talk through different locations in a castle I couldn't figure out the design logic for that looked both wrecked and ancient even though the clothes put them in the medieval period when said castles were being built. It makes no sense. The characters have no reason to do it. The castle is ridiculously huge and maze like, which could work to add a whole labyrinth lost in theme, but mostly just looks stupid. Especially since, whenever the meanings of a scene can be collapsed to utter stupidity by having another character witness the people planning it, that happens. Castle of gigantitude! Lost in the corridors! But when he needs to know he's spied on he not only walks in on them planning it but sees their shadows just in case we've forgotten in the previous second?
And I know Hamlet can be a bit funny, but there's such a thing as moderation. Mel Gibson seems to think he's a clown. It was ghastly.
And that's just from the bits I could manage to watch.
I couldn't find anything in this film worth the looking at. It's one huge What Not To Do. It managed to erase every area of interest we've studied in class.
So. Retcon. Please.
On the plus side mum assures me I've watched this version before, and I successfully repressed that, so I can probably do so again.
I know, you all warned me. But it was the only one left in the library. (Today my reservation came in. Tomorrow I can go get Branagh again. I'll need it, to scrub my brain out.)
It's not just that Mel Gibson is a truly atrocious actor - and he is, really, very, badly.
It's everything. The set design and costume design and the way they butchered the text, dropped it in a blender, and threw random chunks of it at the screen in any old order. And then made stuff up. *shudders*
Look, I know you need to leave stuff out or have a LotR bum numbing edition, but you can't go making up scenes that Shakespeare didn't have. They will be worse. It's just this thing that happens when you're playing with the most respected text in the canon.
I realise that for movies they like to change the scene a lot more than plays do, but since this is a stage play what you end up with is a lot of background changes as characters walk and talk through different locations in a castle I couldn't figure out the design logic for that looked both wrecked and ancient even though the clothes put them in the medieval period when said castles were being built. It makes no sense. The characters have no reason to do it. The castle is ridiculously huge and maze like, which could work to add a whole labyrinth lost in theme, but mostly just looks stupid. Especially since, whenever the meanings of a scene can be collapsed to utter stupidity by having another character witness the people planning it, that happens. Castle of gigantitude! Lost in the corridors! But when he needs to know he's spied on he not only walks in on them planning it but sees their shadows just in case we've forgotten in the previous second?
And I know Hamlet can be a bit funny, but there's such a thing as moderation. Mel Gibson seems to think he's a clown. It was ghastly.
And that's just from the bits I could manage to watch.
I couldn't find anything in this film worth the looking at. It's one huge What Not To Do. It managed to erase every area of interest we've studied in class.
So. Retcon. Please.
On the plus side mum assures me I've watched this version before, and I successfully repressed that, so I can probably do so again.
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Date: 2009-05-23 09:59 am (UTC)I feel your pain. They recently brought a "modern" version of the greatest Hungarian play in the National Theatre of all places - it was the scandal of the season. Certain "creative" heads just ought to be severed from the necks holding them.
*is bloodthirsty*
Here, your nice Retcon pill. The red version, cos it's industrial strength.