I don't need to think of you.
So, I am pretty terrified about my upcoming Yuletide assignment. Also trying to think of any last minute changes I want to make. But, no. That is the whole point of Yuletide, yes? But I better not get someone I know.
The news about McKellen and Stewart doing Waiting for Godot (and I made noise out loud when I read that) is pretty awesome. Why, why, why. WHY. Am I not in the UK?! I want to go more than anything right now.
But that got me thinking about Betrayal (Beckett -> Pinter is a perfectly reasonable line of thought). I watched the film version last month, and honestly I didn't like it nearly as much as the play I saw in 2007. Even though the cast is arguably better in the film - Patricia Hodge, Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley - the movie just doesn't work. For one, it isn't funny. For another, it's reeeeeally flat. Betrayal is actually hilarious.
JERRY: Look at the way you're looking at me. I can't wait for you. I'm bowled over, I'm totally knocked out, you dazzle me, you jewel, my jewel, I can't ever sleep again, no, listen, it's the truth, I won't walk, I'll be a cripple, I'll descend, I'll diminish, into total paralysis, my life is in your hands, that's what you're banishing me to, a state of catatonia, do you know the state of catatonia? do you? do you? the state of...where the reigning prince is the prince of emptiness, the prince of absence, the prince of desolation. I love you.
EMMA: My husband is at the other side of that door.
JERRY: Everyone knows. The world knows. It knows. But they'll never know, they'll never know, they're in a different world. I adore you. I'm madly in love with you. I can't believe that what anyone is at this moment saying has ever happened has ever happened. Nothing has ever happened. Nothing. Your eyes kill me. I'm lost. You're wonderful.
See, that right there is a carpe diem poem of which John Donne would have been proud, if John Donne were a 20th century playwright. I mean, that..."have sex with me or I'll die" line really sucks, yes, I understand. But but but. Those words are incredibly moving. Nobody in this play is a great person, but Jerry at least gets that "do you know the state of catatonia?" moment where he thinks he loves Emma, truly. And consequently, never hits an emotional note as pure ever again. (He's actually, as both versions picked up on, kind of dumb.) I would never have believed Jeremy Irons incapable of selling that scene. But he was.
Patricia Hodge, however, was quite good. She was very much the central person in the film, and she had an Emma that was very much aware. Dervla Kirwan also had a great Emma (partly, I'll admit, because of her voice - that opening scene! In her voice! EMMA: Do you ever think of me etc), but she was very much bruised (not physically...that we saw) and a little scared.
I don't understand Ben Kingsley's performance at all. It was insectoid. Samuel West had a chilling Robert, but ultimately you still liked him and wanted to sleep with him and sympathized with him. Ben Kinglsey played Robert like he was a villain.
That went on longer than I expected.
The news about McKellen and Stewart doing Waiting for Godot (and I made noise out loud when I read that) is pretty awesome. Why, why, why. WHY. Am I not in the UK?! I want to go more than anything right now.
But that got me thinking about Betrayal (Beckett -> Pinter is a perfectly reasonable line of thought). I watched the film version last month, and honestly I didn't like it nearly as much as the play I saw in 2007. Even though the cast is arguably better in the film - Patricia Hodge, Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley - the movie just doesn't work. For one, it isn't funny. For another, it's reeeeeally flat. Betrayal is actually hilarious.
JERRY: Look at the way you're looking at me. I can't wait for you. I'm bowled over, I'm totally knocked out, you dazzle me, you jewel, my jewel, I can't ever sleep again, no, listen, it's the truth, I won't walk, I'll be a cripple, I'll descend, I'll diminish, into total paralysis, my life is in your hands, that's what you're banishing me to, a state of catatonia, do you know the state of catatonia? do you? do you? the state of...where the reigning prince is the prince of emptiness, the prince of absence, the prince of desolation. I love you.
EMMA: My husband is at the other side of that door.
JERRY: Everyone knows. The world knows. It knows. But they'll never know, they'll never know, they're in a different world. I adore you. I'm madly in love with you. I can't believe that what anyone is at this moment saying has ever happened has ever happened. Nothing has ever happened. Nothing. Your eyes kill me. I'm lost. You're wonderful.
See, that right there is a carpe diem poem of which John Donne would have been proud, if John Donne were a 20th century playwright. I mean, that..."have sex with me or I'll die" line really sucks, yes, I understand. But but but. Those words are incredibly moving. Nobody in this play is a great person, but Jerry at least gets that "do you know the state of catatonia?" moment where he thinks he loves Emma, truly. And consequently, never hits an emotional note as pure ever again. (He's actually, as both versions picked up on, kind of dumb.) I would never have believed Jeremy Irons incapable of selling that scene. But he was.
Patricia Hodge, however, was quite good. She was very much the central person in the film, and she had an Emma that was very much aware. Dervla Kirwan also had a great Emma (partly, I'll admit, because of her voice - that opening scene! In her voice! EMMA: Do you ever think of me etc), but she was very much bruised (not physically...that we saw) and a little scared.
I don't understand Ben Kingsley's performance at all. It was insectoid. Samuel West had a chilling Robert, but ultimately you still liked him and wanted to sleep with him and sympathized with him. Ben Kinglsey played Robert like he was a villain.
That went on longer than I expected.