Titularly Parasitical

“The Taming of the Shrew.” By Christopher Lloyd. Perf. Tim Daly, Steven Weber, and Crystal Bernard. Dir. Andy Ackerman. Wings. Season 3, episode 3. NBC. 10 October 1991. DVD. Paramount, 2006.

---

So many Shakespeare and Film disappointments have taken place because of the merely titularly parasitical . . . that is, the simply eponymously leech-like . . . er . . . what one might call the superficially allusional . . .

All right. It’s when they give something a title that has a reference to Shakespeare but they don’t back up that title with any Shakespearean matter.

That’s true of the episode of Wings listed above. It’s called “The Taming of the Shrew,” but it’s basically about the character above who had a bad breakup and was sort of angry. But then she got over it.

Ah, well. It indicates that Shakespeare is still a financial draw . . . or that he was in 1991.

The same disappointment accompanied my viewing of an Animaniacs’ episode entitled “The Taming of the Screwy.”

But that one was, at least, much, much funnier!

---

Rubber Duckie—You're the One

Hamlet Goes Business [Hamlet Liikemaailmassa]. Dir. Aki Kaurismäki. Perf. Pirkka-Pekka Petelius, Esko Salminen, Kati Outinen, Elina Salo, and Esko Nikkari. 1987. DVD. Villealfa Film, 1998.

---

The 1987 Finnish film Hamlet Goes Business sets the Hamlet narrative in a rubber duck factory. It has something in common with the Almereyda version (with Ethan Hawke): both are set in business enterprises instead of kingdoms.

The rubber duck factory aspect (R.D.F.A.) is often seen as humorous—and it is. But it’s also darkly Nihilistic. In Almereyda, the business is top-notch, and the stakes (if you like that sort of thing) are high. Stressing the RDFA in Kaurismäki makes the narrative more meaningless.

The Almereyda has its own RDA (rubber duck aspect), but I think it tends to make that part of the narrative more significant and touching.

Among the “remembrances of [his] / That [Ophelia has] longed long to redeliver” (III.i.93-94) is a rubber duck (smaller than those in Hamlet Goes Business).

Observe:


That’s an in-joke, I’m sure, among the filmmakers. But I wonder if it isn’t an in-joke between this Hamlet and this Ophelia. Did this Hamlet give that remembrance to Ophelia because Hamlet Goes Business is just the sort of film this Hamlet would watch? And does that give him a meta-theatrical awareness of his own plot?

Probably not . . . but I’m just saying . . .

---

Strangely Compelling

“Hamlet: Act II, Scene ii.” Cat Head Theatre. Dir. Tim Maloney. Perf. John Over, Zero, Cinder, and Round-Eye. Naked Rabbit, 2002. 27 March 2008 .

---

This has been around since 2002, but I only came across it this morning.

Enjoy!

---

Miller Analogies Test for Polonius

Hamlet. Dir. Kevin Kline. Perf. Kevin Kline and Diane Venora. 1990. DVD. Image Entertainment, 1990.

---

The Miller Analogies Test tests the test-taker’s ability to take the Miller Analogies test. It presents a series of analogies (with the last element missing), and you have to choose which is the best response.

For example, you might be faced with the following (the first colon means “is to”; the set of two colons means “as”):

Red:Stop::Green:_______

a. Martian
b. Sports Car
c. Go
d. Chicken Feathers

They’re probably looking for “Red is to Stop as Green is to Go.”

Here’s my question for the Polonius pictured above—my favorite Polonius (from Kevin Kline’s Hamlet):

Jephthah:Poor Treatment of his Daughter::Polonius:_______

a. Poor Treatment of his Daughter
b. Loves his Daughter Passing Well
c. The Best Actors i’ th’ World
d. Chicken Feathers

I imagine that he would go for either b. or d., but a. and c. simply wouldn’t occur to him.

---

Homework: Jephthah (and the Fishmonger)

The Reformation Study Bible. Gen. Ed. R. C. Sproul. English Standard Version. Orlando: Ligonier, 2005

---

Your homework is to read Judges 11. What? You expect to read this blog without having to do homework? You’re kidding!

Oh, all right. I’ll shorten it a bit. Click here, read Judges 11:29-40, and come back.

Thanks.

If only Polonius could have pulled out his Blackberry and done the same.

Perhaps that’s really the problem. Polonius is working from the third Arden edition and Hamlet is working from the second—Hamlet’s barbs hit home less seldom because of Polonius’ inability to see beyond the madness (either acted or real).

Anyway, the point is this. The fishmonger reference sets up this analogy:

Fishmonger:Polonius::Fishmonger’s Daughter:Ophelia

If we follow Jenkins, which I do, we may equate fishmongers to bawds (in more modern parlance, “pimp” might be used). The darker analogy follows:

Pimp:Polonius::Prostitute:Ophelia

In other words, Hamlet, having overheard Polonius’ plans . . . or just knowing how power-hungry Polonius is . . . accuses him of attempting to prostitute his own daughter in order to get ahead.

The Jephthah reference seems to me to be very similar. You are willing to sacrifice your own daughter in order to achieve victory. Polonius doesn’t seem to know the full story—only what Hamlet provides. He says,

If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well. (II.ii.407-08)

Hamlet’s response—”Nay, that follows not” (II.ii.409) means both “That’s not the next line of the famous ballad about Jephthah that I’m quoting” and “That’s not the conclusion to be drawn from my analogy.

Jenkins glosses the line in this way: “. . . he is thus the opposite of a fishmonger” (260), but I think that the two situations are parallel.

All right, here’s another analogy to clarify that:

Fishmongers:poor treatment of daughters::Jephthahs:poor treatment of daughters.

They both are willing to sacrifice their own daughters to gain their own desires. And Polonius fits too well in that camp.

---

Hamlet and the Other Fishmonger

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. 3rd. ed. London: Arden, 2006.

---

The footnote from the third (rather than from the second) Arden edition ties the line up far more neatly. Here, it’s funny—and it also indicates that Hamlet is pretending to be mad. Apparantly, it’s such a funny mistake that he can’t really be mad, can he?

It also tells us that other editors argue about the implications of the word . . . but that we’re not going to. We’ll point you toward Harold Jenkins’ Long Note on the subject, but we won’t deal with it here.

If Mel Gibson's portrayal of Hamlet fits Jenkins’ footnote (aware that Polonius is going to “loose [his] daughter” to him, he makes a deliberate dig at Polonius), Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet (in Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet) better fits this note. At that point, he’s essentially unaware that Bill Murray (sorry! I mean Polonius) is going to make use of his daughter. He’s reviewing a video he must have made at some point, and the fishmonger line is delivered off-handedly.

More on fishmongers later—I promise! But we still need to get to Jephthah.

---

Hamlet and the Fishmonger

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Harold Jenkins. 2nd. ed. London: Arden, 1982.

---

If Hamlet has overheard Polonius’ plan to “loose my daughter to him” (II.ii), Hamlet’s identification of Polonius as “a fishmonger” makes more sense . . . if we consider “fishmonger” to have the associations Harold Jenkins, the editor of the second Arden edition of the play, thinks it has. Therefore, the sneaky Gibson Hamlet may be spot on. Or it may be over-interpreting the word, and, working backward from that point, it may ascribe to Hamlet qualities that he does not have.

The OED is notoriously unhelpful with any off-color possibilities for this word. In fact, its five-word definition—“One who deals in fish”—seems to eliminate any polysemous potential in practical application (particularly as it might point to Polonius). The use Hamlet makes of the word in Hamlet is conspicuous by its absence from the illustrative quotations.

It might be too simplistic to gloss “fishmonger” as “bawd,” but I’m tempted to let it go at that. Most of Hamlet’s “mad” words to Polonius seem much more pointed than simply humorous.

If Polonius is a fishmonger in this sense, that makes Ophelia the fish. But she may be (and, in some productions, she most decidedly is) “She is nother fyshe nor fleshe, nor good red hearyng” (1 Hen. IV, III.iii.144).

Could there be some elision that makes the joke plainer and more pointed? Shakespeare uses the word “fleshmonger” in Measure for Measure—”Was the Duke a flesh-monger, a foole, and a coward, as you then reported him to be? (V. i. 337)—and the OED pulls no punches about the meaning of that word: Definition 2 reads “A fornicator; a pander.”

More on this in the future—believe it or not, there’s much more to say!

But . . . coming soon . . . Jephthah!

---

Hamlet: Now you See him . . .

Hamlet. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. Mel Gibson, Glenn Close, and Helena Bonham Carter. 1990. DVD. Warner Home Video, 2004.

---

. . . now you don’t.

And that’s one of my favorite things about the Zeffirelli / Mel Gibson Hamlet (the character, not the play). This Hamlet is sneaky.

There are great advantages to portraying a Hamlet who overhears a lot of what goes on in Elsinore. It helps motivate his hatred of Polonius, it helps us understand his suspicions of Ophelia, and it gives him a greater rationale for putting on the mad act.

Of course, that depends on whether we think that Mad Max is capable of merely acting mad and not being mad.

---

Hamlet, Hamlet—Everywhere!

“Cyberwoman.” By Chris Chibnall. Perf. John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Naoko Mori, and Gareth David-Lloyd. Dir. James Strong. Torchwood. Season 1, episode 4. BBC Wales. 5 November 2006. DVD. 2 Entertain Video, 2007.

---

Am I stretching things, or is this really a Shakespearean moment? I watched this episode of Torchwood (a Doctor Who spinoff—and, I’m afraid, a rather disappointing one) during Spring Break, and I was struck by an allusion to Shakespeare. This time, it wasn’t an allusion to the text of any of his plays or to his biography; rather, it was an allusion to a stage direction in Hamlet.

The scene is the last in Act III. Hamlet has killed Polonius and confronted his mother. The folio stage direction reads “Exit Hamlet tugging in Polonius” (III.iv.219). Later, the queen says that he has gone “To draw apart the body he hath kill’d” (IV.i.24). Here, the character played by Gareth David-Lloyd (who just has a nifty name) exits with the words, “I’ll hide the body. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Clearly, Hamlet has influenced Torchwood at the deepest possible level! “Everything’s going to be okay” was precisely what Hamlet was thinking when he stowed Polonius away. It doesn’t matter that the plot of the episode involves a half-completed cyberwoman who accidentally kills the man pictured above in an attempt to turn him into a cyberman. It’s Hamlet, sure enough!

You seem skeptical.

Maybe I’ll just have to put together a slideshow of all the Hamlets drawing apart the bodies of all the Poloniuses. Maybe then you’ll be convinced.

In the meanwhile, just note that the word “Torchwood” is an anagram of the phrase “Doctor Who.” Cool.

---

Unqualified Hamlet?

Mel Gibson

v.

Leonardo DiCaprio.

---

Yesterday, I made a qualified claim about Hamlet: There have been more film versions of Hamlet than of [almost] any other Shakespeare play. The qualification was in there because I hadn’t yet done the math.

Well, it turns out that the qualification may be correct. I did a quick count of the movie version made of the two frontrunners in the most-film-versions competition in Eddie Sammons’ Shakespeare: A Hundred Years on Film (London: Shepherd Walwyn, 2000). Sammons’ work is a bit uneven, leaving out some versions I would expect to be there and counting others I wouldn’t really consider countable (for example, the book lists The Lion King—which is legitimate—but it also lists two brief Lion King promo videos—which I wouldn’t really count as separate items), but, with his numbers, we are, at least, comparing apples and apples.

It’s close, folks . . . it’s awfully close. And developments since 2000 may have changed this neck-and-neck race to the finish.

Sammons lists seventy-five Hamlet or Hamlet-related films. He lists seventy-seven Romeo and Juliet or Romeo and Juliet-related films.

So we’ll just keep that qualification in there for the time being.

---

Homage or Plagiarism in Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado about Nothing. Dir. Kenneth Branagh. Perf. Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Denzel Washington, Michael Keaton and Keanu Reeves. 1993. DVD. MGM, 2003.

---

After only a few minutes, Branagh’s Much Ado about Nothing presents a visual reference to the 1960 Western The Magnificent Seven (with Yul Brynner). When I first watched the film (in 1993—egad!), I didn’t get that specific allusion (“Ah,” I thought, “he’s playing with a Western cliché. Neat.”), but I did notice a later allusion.

When Dogberry enters, he gallops along (with his trusty sidekick) après la mode de (as the French may or may not say) the knights in Monty Python’s Holy Grail.

The only thing keeping it from being pure plagiarism (if such a terrible crime can ever be called “pure”) is that the scene is played sans noix de coco (as the French probably never say)—without coconuts.

I’m only half-joking about the possibility of plagiarism. When I first saw the movie, I thought, “Aw! [Yes, my thoughts tend to start with interjections. What, do you have a problem with that? Man! Forget about it!] That’s not fair to Monty Python. I hope they’re at least getting some royalties out of that.”

But Branagh may have had other purposes in putting Dogberry (who is often on his high horse) on such a low horse. It marks him as comic relief de la façon de (there we go again!) Monty Python, of course. But it also sets his position in relation to the other gallopers (whether sans cheval ou non).

That doesn’t redeem the other things Branagh does with Dogberry, but it explains the Monty Python reference.

That sort of . . . in-joke? homage? allusion? what do you want to call it? . . . is all over the place in film—particularly, it seems to me, in Shakespeare-related films. Even The Magnificent Seven is itself a retelling of Akira Kurosawa’s Shichinin no Samurai.

We’re about to begin a three-week segment on Hamlet. Every Hamlet film ever made—not excluding the five-minute silent Hamlet—references every other Hamlet film ever made. That’s why this sort of allusion-work is on my mind.

But that’s for next time.

---

Homage or Plagiarism?

Kiss me, Kate. Dir. Chris Hunt. Perf. Brent Barrett and Rachel York. 1999. DVD. Image Entertainment, 2003.

---

The 1953 Kiss me, Kate cuts the number “I am Ashamed that Women are so Simple.” The 2003 release of the 1999 London stage revival leaves it in. Immediately afterwards, Katherine / Lilli gives this enormous wink—one reminiscent of the wink in the Sam Taylor Taming of the Shrew (for which, q.v.). It has to be enormous so that the people in the back row will be able to see it—it’s primarily a stage production, after all.

Does that wink count as indebtedness, homage, an allusion, or down-and-out plagiarism?

I ask because it happens frequently in film—and, perhaps, particularly frequently in Shakespeare-related film.

Next time, homage in Much Ado About Nothing.

---

A Wilderness of Monkeys . . .

Romeo and Juliet: A Monkey’s Tale. Dir. Karina Holden. Perf. Tim Hopper and Thousands of Monkeys. 2007. DVD. Animal Planet, 2008.

---

A Wilderness of Monkeys—

—performs Romeo and Juliet.

Yeah.

Well, “perform” may be too strong a word, but in this Shakespearean Adaptation or Derivitive (not exactly on Rothwell’s charts), the narrator describes the plot of Romeo and Juliet while showing the clash of two groups of monkeys.

I didn’t get very far, to tell you the truth. I got through the freeze frame / name card main-character-monkey section . . . but no further.

If an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters typed for an infinite amount of time, I still don’t think they’d come up with the screenplay for this one.

---

Current Events or Plot Summary?

Kocieniewski, David, and Danny Hakim. “Felled by Scandal, Spitzer Says Focus is on His Family.” New York Times 13 March 2008.

---

Is it just that I’m deeply engrossed in Measure for Measure, or is the contemporary political scene echoing, once again, the plot of a Shakespeare play?

This was the opening to a story in the New York Times yesterday:

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whose rise to political power as a fierce enforcer of ethics in public life was undone by revelations of his own involvement with prostitutes, resigned on Wednesday, becoming the first New York governor to leave office amid scandal in nearly a century.

Let me change that just a bit . . .

Acting Duke Antonio, whose rise to political power as a fierce enforcer of ethics in public life was undone by revelations of his own attempt to seduce a nun (which resulted in an assignation with his ex-fiancée), resigned at Act V, scene i, lines 366-74, becoming the first Shakespearean protagonist to leave office amid scandal since Duke Frederick.

I’m not trying to get the mote of dust out of either Governor Spitzer’s or Antonio’s eyes—we all have our hypocrisies. And the title of the play is meant to advise against taking measure for measure. I just wanted to see if Spitzer’s story measures up (ha, ha!) to Antonio’s.

---

Inch by Inch toward Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure. Dir. Desmond Davis. Perf. Kate Nelligan. DVD. BBC / Time Life, 2001.

---

My main project for spring break is writing an essay for a Shakespeare conference in June. The play is Measure for Measure; the thesis is more complicated than a microblog on Shakespeare and Film can bear.

I’m hoping to convince Kenneth Branagh to get to work on his film version of Measure for Measure right away. The only readily-available film version of the play is the BBC production. The image above is of the Duke extending his hand to Isabella (his hand is ready—let’s see if it will do her ease) to ask for her hand (is her hand ready?) in matrimony.

It’s a key moment for any production of the play. Isabella isn’t allowed (or, depending on your point of view, doesn’t have) any speech in response to his proposal.

In the BBC, her nun’s habit is already close enough to a wedding gown, so (spoiler alert!), after a substantial pause, she does take his hand.

My essay needs to deal with how they got there and what we are to make of the rites, rituals, and ceremonies of the play itself and of plays contemporary to Shakespeare.

In the meanwhile, get started, Branagh! Our DVD players are ready—may you do them ease!

---