A Non-True, Non-Story
9/12/08 (barely)
The author I chose to study in AP Lit is William Shakespeare. I personally I always found him to be overrated since I was thirteen, fourteen and sixteen having been spoon fed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet, and Macbeth to me, both in play and the film adaptations that always followed in class. I only vaguely remember A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and that I didn’t like it; I hate Romeo & Juliet with a passion, and though I did like Macbeth quite a bit, I never cared for it nearly as much as I am supposed to.
One Shakespeare-related (sort of) piece of art that I’ve always loved is My Own Private Idaho, a screenplay loosely based on Henry IV Part 1. It’s a mind boggling film. River Phoenix’s performance is nearly flawless, with a singular bad line delivery when the older, rich lady picks him up towards the beginning. I forget what he says, but he says it unrealistically loud and deliberate for someone mumbling to himself, which I find actors do that all the time. I wish they wouldn’t. But that Phoenix more than accounts for that little peeve of mine throughout the movie especially in his haunting last laugh in the third act of the movie.
But I think the reason I enjoy this movie enough to buy a copy of it (I can’t really afford too many DVD’s) is the visual direction it takes. It often stays in one shot for extended periods of time, and takes this time to let the characters speak about the things that make them who they are without directly contributing to the story. The campfire scene gets it fame for all the right reasons, but my favorite example of this is when Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix try to start their motorcycle for a few minutes in a singular shot. The dialogue is familiar and the setting is both beautiful and significant to the characters at the same time. It shows you the action the way a viewer sees them in real life: in one perspective. A sense of reality. That’s what I, a modern reader, never could get from Shakespeare.
But I did really enjoy Hamlet. Maybe a little more so than Idaho.
