Friday, August 29, 2008

Brief Lear Reference in Season One of Slings and Arrows

“A Mirror up to Nature.” Deleted Scene. By Susan Coyne. Dir. Peter Wellington. Perf. Martha Burns, Paul Gross, Don McKellar, Mark McKinney, Oliver Dennis, Susan Coyne, Stephen Ouimette, Catherine Fitch, Rachel McAdams, and Luke Kirby. Slings and Arrows. Season 1, episode 5. Movie Central: Canada. 1 December 2003. DVD. Acorn Media, 2006-2007.

You know that I can't say enough good things about Slings and Arrows. This clip takes a lighthearted look (you didn't think it was possible, did you?) at the "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks" speech from III.ii. 

The character playing the character playing Hamlet has been refusing to use the exact words of the speeches, preferring, instead, to paraphrase the lines until he's able to internalize him. In this scene, deleted from the broadcast but included on the DVD, he finally starts using Shakespeare's words. Later in the scene, in something of an epiphany, he break out in Lear—showing that he's actually perfectly capable of using the language. Check it out:

Do you wonder what the guy in the car is doing, phoning someone after witnessing that performance? Well, get the series and watch it! Enjoy!

Links: Wikipedia Entry on the Series.

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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
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The very instant that I saw you did / My heart fly to your service; there resides, / To make me slave to it; and, for your sake, / Am I this patient [b]log-man.

—The Tempest