Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Shakespeare's Appearance in The Lego Movie

The Lego Movie. Dir. Phil Lord, Christopher Miller. Perf. Jorma Taccone, Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, and Elizabeth Banks. 2014. DVD. WarnerBrothers, 2014.
Although Bardfilm tries to be completely cutting edge, right on the spot as Shakespeare-related developments occur, we do occasionally have lapses.

Sometimes the lapses are as long as four years.

It's been four years since I saw The Lego Movie in theaters, and I remember wanting to call our collective attention to William Shakespeare's appearance in the film. Then it took time for the DVD to be released and for the library to buy it and for me to remember just where exactly Shakespeare appeared in the film.

But we're all ready now! I've put together one clip with each of the three appearances William Shakespeare makes in The Lego Movie. The first is his only line in the film:  "Rubbish." Shakespeare himself only uses the word twice (not counting "Ay, there's the rub[bish]" from Hamlet's soliloquy. In Julius Caesar, Cassius says, "what trash is Rome, / What rubbish and what offal, when it serves / For the base matter to illuminate / So vile a thing as Caesar!" (I.iii.113-16). In Richard II, the Duchess of York asks Edmund of Langley to pick up his tale from where he left off—where "rude misgovern'd hands from windows' tops / Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head" (6-7).

Shakespeare's second appearance is when he flies into battle to save the day.

And, at his final appearance, he does the popular dance known as "The Worm."  Here you go—and apologies for the four-year delay.

Links: The Film at IMDB.


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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.
All material original to this blog is copyrighted: Copyright 2008-2039 (and into perpetuity thereafter) by Keith Jones.

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