Never in a Month of Sundays—Except in November

Kennedy, Eden Marriott. NaBloPoMo. 1 November 2008 {http://www.nablopomo.com/}.

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November is the month many bloggers participate in NaBloPoMo—National Blog Posting Month. The idea is to encourage bloggers to post once a day for the entire month of November.

Well, I managed it! And I managed it with the additional restriction I had placed on myself: Post every day for a month without mentioning or complaining about NaBloPoMo!

Kudos to me, I suppose (though I'm not sure self-kudosization should really be allowed—though a considerable fraction of the blogosphere is devoted to it, now that I think about it); I enjoyed it. And I hope you enjoyed it, too.

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Links: The Official NaBloPoMo Site.

A Change of Pace: Fatty Arbuckle as Cleopatra

The Cook. Dir. Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Perf. Buster Keaton and Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. 1918. DVD. The Cook and Other Treasures. Image Entertainment, 2003.

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This film derivitive of Anthony and Cleopatra won't be found in any of the scholarly textbooks, though I can't imagine why it isn't. It's clearly a re-enactment of the death scene of Shakespeare's (and not just history's) Cleopatra!

N.B.: Notice the clever use of sausages-as-asp:

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Links: The Film at IMDB.

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Data as Henry V

“The Defector.” By Ronald D. Moore. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, and Michael Dorn. Dir. Robert Scheerer. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 3, episode 10. Syndicated television. 1 January 1990. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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Chronologically, the clip below precedes the one in my previous post. This encounter that the Enterprise has with Shakespeare is one I've already written about. But that was a long time ago in a galaxy far . . . oh, wait a minute. Wrong Star-related quotation.

In any case, Data plays the role of Henry V in this holodeck presentation of the play:

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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Star Trek Deconstructs the Romantic Use of the Sonnets

“Ménage à Troi.” By Fred Bronson and Susan Sackett. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, and Michael Dorn. Dir. Robert Legato. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 3, episode 24. Syndicated television. 10 June 1990. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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And sometimes, Shakespeare and Star Trek just get silly.

I've written about this episode before, mentioning the slight inaccuracies in the quotations and the unamused look on Worf's face, but I didn't include a clip of all the silliness that surrounds them.

We're treated to sections of Sonnets 147 and 141, after which we jump to Sonnet 18. A smattering of Othello rounds out the jealousy Picard is attempting to portray. Then Picard adds a sliver of Alfred, Lord Tennyson—just to round things off.

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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Shakespeare's Enduring Legacy, Imaginatively Extended to A.D. 2363

“Hide & Q.” By C. J. Holland and Gene Roddenberry. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Denise Crosby, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton, and John de Lancie. Dir. Cliff Bole. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 1, episode 10. Syndicated television. 23 November 1987. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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The second Shakespeare reference in The Next Generation takes place in the second episode (for which, q.v.). The third reference comes along with the second appearance of the entity known as Q.

Q is an omniscient, omnipotent entity who shows up periodically to tease or to test the human beings on the Enterprise. In this scene, he's thumbing through Picard's Globe Illustrated Shakespeare. He give us a bit of Hamlet, followed by a modernized-to-the-year-2363 version of Jaques' "All the world's a stage" speech from As You Like It. A sampling of Macbeth follows, to which Picard responds with some more Hamlet, specifically, this:

What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty. In form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel—in apprehension how like a god!

Picard says he's saying this sincerely—without Hamlet's irony and without (though he doesn't say this outright) Hamlet's "Yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust" that tends to take the edge off the lines. When Picard compares man to a god, Q (who is an omniscient, omnipotent entity, remember—something of a god himself) is appalled. And rightly so!

What we tend to forget about that speech, especially when it's taken out of context, is that Hamlet is talking to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who have already admitted that they are working for the King. Although Hamlet's purposes in uttering this in particular to people he knows will report what he says to his nemesis are unclear, it is clear that we can't take it at face value. At face value, it's quite an appalling claim!

I prefer the passage that may lie at the back of it: Psalm 8:3-5.

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.

But back to the scene in question. Here it is!

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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Shakespeare in the Next Generation

“Encounter at Farpoint.” By D. C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Denise Crosby, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton, and DeForest Kelley. Dir. Corey Allen. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 1, episode 1. Syndicated television. 28 September 1987. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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It doesn't take long for The Next Generation to pick up the habit of incorporating Shakespeare into its dialogue. In the very first episode, Picard pulls out that delightful line from Henry VI, Part II as a critique of the strange courtroom experience the crew is having:

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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"Thanks, Dear Isabel": Inadequate Words on Thanksgiving Day

Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure. Ed. Jonathan Crewe. Pelican Shakespeare. Gen. ed. Stephen Orgel. New York: Penguin Classic, 2000.

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It seems like one of the most inadequate responses in all of Shakespeare. Isabella has just told her brother that the only way to get him out of prison is for her—her, a novitiate!—to sleep with the unjust judge. She adds this line to her explanation of her refusal to do so (and to his agreement to her refusal to do so):

O, were it but my life,
I'ld throw it down for your deliverance
As frankly as a pin.

Claudio responds with these words: "Thanks, dear Isabel."

Those lines seem, somehow, not to measure up (ha!) to the offer.

But that's how we feel every Thanksgiving. We have so very, very much to be thankful for—on both a material and a spiritual plane—that a simple "Thanks" seems inadequate.

However, it is heartfelt. And it seems that all the eloquence in the world wouldn't weigh evenly against all that we have been given.

Therefore, we just say, in the words of Sebastian of Twelfth Night,

I can no other answer make but thanks,
And thanks; and ever thanks. (III.iii.15-16)

Happy Thanksgiving from Bardfilm, everyone!

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"I am Shylock! Know Ye Not That?"

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Dir. Nicholas Meyer. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, and George Takei. 1991. DVD. Paramount, 2004.

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All right, after this post, we'll move from The Undiscovered Country to other matters.

The previous post mentioned a broadcast of Merchant of Venice on the day before Kristellnacht. The intent seems to have been to incite the general populace to anti-Semitism.

It vaguely reminded me of an incident in the lives of Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare.  In 1601, Shakespeare's company was paid to put on a production of Richard II the day before a failed insurrection.  The play addresses the successful deposition of an unpopular monarch, and the theory is that the leaders of the insurrection (the Earl of Essex and his crowd) thought that the play would rally the people to their cause—or, at least, give them courage to go through with a dangerous and deadly—and, for Essex and many others, fatal—operation.

Afterwards, in extreme pique, Her Majesty purportedly said, "I am Richard—know ye not that?"

Fortunately, the players—and the author—escaped severe punishment.

The idea was similar in Germany in 1938.  The problem was that it was successful, rallying the people to attack the supposed Shylocks among them.

Why couldn't they have broadcast As You Like It, in which the terrible ruler becomes miraculous converted in the forest and turns his throne over to the good guys?

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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Discoveries in The Undiscovered Country

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Dir. Nicholas Meyer. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, and George Takei. 1991. DVD. Paramount, 2004.

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After this post, we'll move from The Undiscovered Country to other matters, but an examination of the use of Shakespeare in that film has led my mind into tangential territory that I find interesting.

All the Shakespeare in that film is given to the villain.  The good guys just watch as their author is misused, abused, appropriated, and twisted—all without even so much as a "base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave" directed at him.

I've repeatedly said that Shylock's "Hath not a Jew" speech is almost impossible to play unsympathetically. In my research for posts on this film (especially on the Nazi use of Shakespeare in the Second World War), I discovered that a version of Merchant of Venice was broadcast on German radio—as incitement to anti-Semitism—on the day before Kristellnacht.

Shylock must have been portrayed with all the worst presumed characteristics of Jews. But I wonder. Could no one hear those lines sympathetically? In the aftermath, did no one think of those words and reconsider?

In the clip I posted in the previous entry, General Chang says the lines, and we fail to sympathize. But, of course, he hasn't been tickled, he hasn't been pricked, and he hasn't even been wronged. Therefore, his claims are ludicrous—we don't have to accept the conclusion of "Hath not a Klingon" because we don't have to accept the premise. But it was surely different in Germany in 1938.

Wasn't it?

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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Pulling Out All the Stops: Allusions to Six Plays (and Two Sherlock Holmes References [one a Shakespeare quote] as a Bonus) in Star Trek VI

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Dir. Nicholas Meyer. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, and George Takei. 1991. DVD. Paramount, 2004.

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In the grand conclusion to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, General Chang gets a little carried away, piling reference upon reference, allusion upon allusion, and quotation upon quotation from Shakespeare into his militaristic taunting. Including the trial scene, we are treated to excerpts or paraphrases (or translations into Klingon) of no less than six plays: Richard II, Henry V, Hamlet (in Klingon), The Merchant of Venice, Henry V (again), The Tempest, Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar (again), and—finally and conclusively—Hamlet (in English).

I've collated them into the clip below, and I've provided the quotes (as uttered in the film, not as printed in authoritative sources) below the clip below. For the Klingon, I used (unabashedly, in this case) the internet. Most sources capitalize and accent the line in this way. Until I get my copy of The Klingon Hamlet (for a link, see below), requested today through Inter-Library Loan, that will pass as authoritative.

Let us sit upon the ground / And tell sad stories of the death of kings.

—Richard II, III.ii.155-56

Once more unto the breach, dear friends!

—Henry V, III.i.1

taH pagh taHbe'.

—Hamlet, Klingon Translation, III.i.55

Tickle us, do we not laugh? Prick us, do we not bleed? Wrong us, shall we not revenge?

—The Merchant of Venice, III.i.64-66

The game's afoot!

—Henry V, III.i.32

Our revels now are ended.

—The Tempest, IV.i.148

Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war!

—Julius Caesar, III.i.273

I am constant as the northern star.

—Julius Caesar, III.i.60

To be or not to be.

—Hamlet, III.i.55

[Dr. McCoy's comment ("I'd give real money if he'd shut up") is not from Shakespeare, though it may move us as much.]

One last brief allusion is found in the mouth of another bad guy ("gal," I suppose, really). Hamlet says that "the devil hath power / T'assume a pleasing shape" (II.ii.599-600). This baddie admits to having the same power:

Update (6 August 2012): The phrase "undiscovered country" is repeated at least twice more (once in plural form) in the course of the film—toward the film's end. Here are two still frames showing those quotations:

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Links: A Gateway to Star Trek Information at Wikipedia. Official Site of The Klingon Hamlet. For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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Mix One Part Hamlet, One Part Tempest, One Part Romeo and Juliet, and One Part Henry IV, Part 2. Mix Well.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Dir. Nicholas Meyer. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, and George Takei. 1991. DVD. Paramount, 2004.

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We're still in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country today, mining it for more Shakespearean fragments.  I didn't offer a lot of commentary on the previous clip (the one that ends with Chekov looking skeptical at Shakespeare "in the original Klingon").  The reason that is so funny (and the reason I left the reference to "Earth—Hitler—1938" in the clip below) is the Nazi appropriation of Shakespeare in World War II.  The common story is that the Nazis claimed that Shakespeare had really been written in German, but the English translated him into English and stole him away from his rightful heritage.  I haven't found that claim in a scholarly source, though I have found statements noting that Shakespeare was to be treated as a German author when non-German playwrights were banned.

In the clip below, you get not one—not two—not three—but four, four, FFFFFOUUURRRR Shakespeare references for the price of one!

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Links: A Gateway to Star Trek Information at Wikipedia. Official Site of The Klingon Hamlet. For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

Click below to purchase the film from amazon.com

(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

The Klingon Appropriation of Hamlet

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Dir. Nicholas Meyer. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, and George Takei. 1991. DVD. Paramount, 2004.

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Some of my favorite connections between Shakespeare and Star Trek come in this film. In this scene, we are reminded that Shakespeare, as we know him, is only an English translation of the far-superior original:

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Links: A Gateway to Star Trek Information at Wikipedia. Official Site of The Klingon Hamlet. For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

Click below to purchase the film from amazon.com

(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

Spock Displays his Well-Rounded, Liberal Arts Education

Star Trek: The Voyage Home. Dir. Leonard Nimoy. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, and George Takei. 1986. DVD. Paramount, 2003.

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And so, we move to the motion pictures (though I will get to the episodes that are just title references and to ST: TNG—don't you worry).

The Original Series offered considerable scope.  In the movies, Hamlet takes the upper hand.  Is it because the studios can't afford to be as obscure in a feature film?

In any case, The Voyage Home offers only a small quotation from Hamlet.  But, for those of you who know its plot, they could have shoved in a quick "Very like a whale" every now and then!

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

Click below to purchase the film from amazon.com

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Review of Shakespeare in Words and Music

Shakespeare in Words and Music. Dir. Albert Girard and Jean-Jacques Sheitoyan. Perf. Attila Ciemann, Pascale Beaudin, Daniela Candillari, et al. 2008. DVD. Kultur, 2008.

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Although the music of Jean Sibelius has its affinities with the soundtracks of Star Trek, that would be stretching things quite a bit. We'll have to consider this a brief interruption to "Shakespeare and Star Trek Week" here at Bardfilm.

With the remnants of my Shakespeare and Film budget, I recently purchased the just-released Shakespeare in Words and Music, hoping that I would be pleasantly surprised. I have a vague notion that "Shakespeare and Opera Week" will be in Bardfilm's future, and I thought this DVD might help me think about that.

The DVD is a humdrum collection of poorly-written introductions, rote performances of set pieces from Shakespeare, and static (though generally good) musical performances. I was going to try to be kind about the quality of the introductions, but I had the film running in the background while writing this post, and this quote just happened by:

"Ha, ha! Music was so important to Will."

[Shudder.]

I'm afraid the acting and scripting are reminiscent of the DVD entitled Shakespeare's Soliloquies (for which, q.v.). I really don't want to be too harsh; I have great sympathy for out-of-work actors, and these actors seem very eager to have these roles after having been out of work for some time. But it's not good acting. I'm sorry.  Even when the script is Shakespeare's own words.

The singing (and the instrumental works, though they are minimal—the DVD focuses on the marriage of music and text) is quite good, and it is interesting to have two hours' traffic of Shakespeare-based music in one convenient location. But it is, on the whole, a disappointing purchase.

The "Broadway Bound" section is particularly disappointing. Except for one song from Boys of Syracuse, every song in that section is from West Side Story. I would have a appreciated a lot more variety there—including some Kiss me, Kate, for example! Otherwise, I would have spent the money on the film version of West Side Story, which has imminently better performances than these.

Here's a representative sample of the acting and the singing from the section entitled "Foreign Masters."  As a bonus (or punishment?), you get a brief introduction to the next song on the DVD.

P.S. Hamlet (as I'm watching along) just said this:

Her mind has lost sway [or “its way”? Annunciate, man!], but Will Shakespeare captures its every descent into a personal solitude of hopelessness. If you should have the mind for it—you’ll pray excuse my choice of words—prepare yourselves to twist and turn with the distraught Ophelia.

And then the film segues to "Shake it up, Baby," performed by a Beatles Tribute Group.

Actually, they don't. But that would be far funnier than what they do do.

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Shakespeare, Sonnet XVIII, and Star Trek

“Whom Gods Destroy.” By Lee Erwin. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, and George Takei. Dir. Herb Wallerstein. Star Trek. Season 3, episode 14. NBC. 3 January 1969. DVD. Paramount, 2008.

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The sonnets are not as often the subject of Shakespeare and Film related material as we might expect. The BBC's A Waste of Shame (for which, q.v.) is the only full-length film treatment of the subject matter of the sonnets that I can think of. More often, sonnets are simply a way to call a certain flavor—usually a romantic flavor—into a film.

As is its wont, Star Trek does something weirder than that. In this case, some insane aliens have taken over the psychiatric ward. One of them recites a poem she wrote this morning (and then goes on with an old, old joke—you'll see):

Here's the sonnet in its entirety—I typed it up this morning!

Sonnet XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
     So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
     So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

Click below to purchase the DVDs from amazon.com

(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).