Cymbeline Friday Film Focus: 1982, Moshinsky (BBC)

Another early summer Friday, another new release: Wonder Woman. And for us, another new–or rather old–video version of Cymbeline. In 1982, as part of the sixth season of the BBC Complete Works series, Elijah Moshinsky directed his version. As with just about all of the BBC films, this one’s pretty stagey, and very faux Elizabethan. Well, really this one looks almost more Old Masters-ry, but that’s neither here nor there.

 

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Posthumus Leonatus’ dead mother says thanks, too.

Way back when, two years ago, when we were discussing that melancholic Dane, I mentioned that our friend scansion had helped us figure out how we were supposed to pronounce Ophelia’s big bro’s name: not “LAYerTEES” (like I had alway thought), but “layAIRtees.” Go figure. Who knew we’d get that same kind of revelation this month with Cymbeline? But we do…

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Cymbeline – Authorship: All Bill’s

So, for those who’ve been following the blog for any length of time, you know I’ve been loving the New Oxford Shakespeare Authorship Companion. It gives us a great look at the latest research as to who may have assisted Shakespeare in the composition of the plays.

Much was made last fall of the announcement, based on this work, that the three Henry VI plays are more co-compositions with Christopher Marlowe, with the first part actually being more the work of Marlowe.

So what does the Authorship Companion have to say about Cymbeline?

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Cymbeline Friday Film Focus: 2014, Almereyda

Another early summer Friday, another new release. Out in the world, it’s Baywatch and the latest Pirates of the Caribbean. For us, another new–or rather old–video version of Cymbeline. And this week, it’s the 2014 theatrical release, directed by Michael Almereyda, and starring Ethan Hawke, Ed Harris, Dakota Johnson, and Penn Badgley.

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Two settings?

OK, I’m seeing (or rather have seen) an interesting bit of interpretive criticism regarding setting in Cymbeline. Seems there are two. Of course, you say: Britain and Rome.

Only that’s not what they’re talking about…

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So you think you can out-write Shakespeare?

OK, so. Let’s say you’re a Shakespeare fan. Think he’s a genius. But there’s this one play. In your opinion, it’s not just not good, not even just bad, but

stagey trash of the lowest melodramatic order, in parts abominably written, throughout intellectually vulgar, and, judged in point of thought by modem intellectual standards, vulgar, foolish, offensive, indecent and exasperating beyond all tolerance.

[jeez, tell us what you really think]

Now, as your grow older, you mellow a bit, seeing the play as “one of the finest of Shakespeare’s later plays now on the stage, [before it] goes to pieces in the last act.”

So what do you do?

Well, if you’re George Bernard Shaw and that play is Cymbeline, you rewrite said act.

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Friday Film Focus: Cymbeline (1913)

It’s May and a Friday, which means a new early (really early) summer blockbuster is being released. A couple of weeks back, it was the latest Guardians of the Galaxy flick. Today, something a little different: the 1913 silent film version of Cymbeline!

OK, so it’s not a theatrical release…but it’s our play under discussion, so just go with me, willya?

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