Posted on 11/18/2007 11:53:23 AM PST by Stoat
There are still some of us out here who have an attention span better than that of a gnat on crack. Hopefully it won't be a production optimized for the viewing habits of a 12 year old videogame addict with ADD.
Ping :-)
I wish they’d leave it with the original text length and vernacular...then just make it all available on DVD. What a collectible that would be!
And to leave room for all the modern political commentary and liberal preaching...
That would be wonderful, wouldn't it?
I would imagine that it will 'eventually' be released on DVD, as they have released other BBC Shakespeare productions on DVD as well
Amazon.com bbc shakespeare DVD
In addition to dumbing down the language, a concern is that depictions of the numerous murders may run afoul of the UK "Health and Safety" laws
He sounds like the kind of guy who wants Romeo and Juliet to star two men in a San Fran bathhouse.
And to leave room for all the modern political commentary and liberal preaching...
Undoubtedly Lady Macbeth will be portrayed by a Condoleezza Rice lookalike and all evildoers will bear a marked physical resemblance to President Bush.
He sounds like the kind of guy who wants Romeo and Juliet to star two men in a San Fran bathhouse.
Yes, and Lady Macbeth's "Unsexing speech" will be deemed as offensive to womyn as it suggests that a woman can't be as strong as a man.
Considering the multitude of scandals that the BBC has been involved with recently, most involving staffers cheating or being breathtakingly dishonest in one fashion or another, a project such as this is an excellent opportunity for them to do something right for a change and to reclaim their place as a respectable institution, but their recent history suggests that it will be merely a slap in the face of a "dead white male" and a colossal insult to anyone who has ever picked up a book in their lives. I will undoubtedly end up watching it when it's released, but I don't have terribly high hopes for the content. I do sincerely hope that I will be proven completely wrong.
If memory serves, the Jonathan Miller productions (1980-82) were supposed to include all the Shakespeare plays. But the project was apparently ended after 12 plays.
I’ve seen the Royal Shakespeare Company productions on DVD in a catalog, but the whole set is SO expensive, like $200.
There are plenty of things in Shakespeare that I don’t really want the children seeing, I have to say. Couldn’t let them watch “Titus” when I checked it out last year!
Aren't they available for rent at your neighborhood video store, or perhaps one of the mail order rental places?
There are plenty of things in Shakespeare that I don’t really want the children seeing, I have to say. Couldn’t let them watch “Titus” when I checked it out last year!
Right offhand I can't think of a single Shakespearean play that I would consider suitable for "very" young children. They were clearly written with mature young people and adults in mind, and if they are produced with even a passing glance in the direction of faithfulness to the original works they will be too complex for very young children to grasp anyway, in addition to any violent content that is frequently present.
Hopefully this new BBC production will not be an effort to make Shakespeare's works suitable for very young children...the Bard would be spinning in his grave.......
They might be available for rental by mail. I haven’t seen them in the Blockbuster or the library. Maybe they haven’t been released for general distribution in the same way as the Hollywood Shakespeare productions, like Laurence Olivier’s Richard III and so on.
I don’t think changes should be made to make the plays suitable for children. They weren’t the intended audience!
They will cut most of the poetry, which is to say, most of the sense.
PING!
ping
I’d prefer if the BBC TV versions from the 1970s (mentioned in the article) were made available on DVD for a reasonable cost. Of course, I’ve not checked in a couple of years...
I'm seeing them packaged in small "gift box" sets at Amazon
Amazon.com bbc shakespeare DVD
But it looks like the better deal is for the whole set at eBay. Even though it's shipped from Australia, you save money over Amazon's packaging
This set is in the PAL video format and so it will only play on your computer, not on your home DVD player in the USA....I'm not seeing it being marketed in the USA.
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A couple of shopping seasons ago, Sam’s Club had a 5 disk package of the most popular plays, around $80 I think. But on occasion I check disks out of the public library, which is where I first saw them.
'Saw this and a few others from the LA Library.
"You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old."
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