!!! CULTURAL PSA !!! King Richard III

[elehhhhna]

DU friends, I implore you to read Shakespeare's play - see it - watch a film of it. It's imo his finest dramatic play, and if you haven't read Shakespeare, just give it a go...


AND the documentary "Looking for Richard" is about Al pacino trying to stage it in NYC. FASCINATING!

[madinmaryland]

1. From what I have read, Shakespeare's version of the life of Richard III is a lot like

reading about the life of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama on the Fox Noise Channel.

Edited to add: In the late 1400's they did not have much in the way of "fact checking".

[JNelson6563]

2. You have heard correctly.

But since it was the House of Tudor that unseated Richard, all history about him during that period are like Faux News reports on A Dem President, as you say.

The victors write the history.

Julie

[madinmaryland]

3. " The victors write the history. " Very true...

Imagine living in a world where Fox News and the Government controlled absolutely everything.

At least we have some sort of semblance of transparency today.

[ananda]

15. Ok, Shakespeare's history plays are far from historical..

.. but they are great drama.

Macbeth is far from historical, and so is Richard III. Josephine Tey put Shakespeare's Richard III to rest, but the play and particularly Olivier's performance is a one of masterpiece... and so is Anthony Quayle's reading of Macbeth, truly superior.

[hatrack]

4. Especially the Ian McKellan version - Annette Bening, Robert Downey, Jr., Kristin Scott Thomas

Brilliant - set in an alternative 1930s Fascist England. Really cool, and Ian is brilliant.

[Silent3]

5. I love that version

I wish they'd re-issue it on Blu-ray.

[u4ic]

6. Agreed

A very fine film indeed

[elehhhhna]

14. yuppers. benning surprised me.

bigtime!

[flamingdem]

7. Ye bloody paved over me grave

ye buggers

[hatrack]

8. What was that bit about "Cursed be he who moves my bones"?

That may have been The Bard himself - can't recall.

[flamingdem]

10. Well done hatrack!

To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones. — William Shakespeare.

[UTUSN]

9. Why is the re-burial going to be there instead of the Abbey? n/t

[pinboy3niner]

11. Just when I thought I was done for a while with the Royals and their events...

...we get a royal re-interment. I wonder what the commemorative dinner plate will look like.

[UTUSN]

13. Yeah, I'm a definite prole anti-royalist (the "royals" are parasites!1) but I thought I'd be nice

and not rain on these Richard threads mainly because of my SHAKESPEARE fondness. Thanks for bringing out my bad self, pin, you really know how to play my buttons!1

[Recursion]

12. My ancestor is a character in Richard III; he kills the two kids

The tyrannous and bloody deed is done.
The most arch of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of.
Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn
To do this ruthless piece of butchery,
Although they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,
Melting with tenderness and kind compassion
Wept like two children in their deaths' sad stories.
'Lo, thus' quoth Dighton, 'lay those tender babes:'
'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest, 'girdling one another
Within their innocent alabaster arms:
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,
Which in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.
A book of prayers on their pillow lay;
Which once,' quoth Forrest, 'almost changed my mind;
But O! the devil'—there the villain stopp'd
Whilst Dighton thus told on: 'We smothered
The most replenished sweet work of nature,
That from the prime creation e'er she framed.'
Thus both are gone with conscience and remorse;
They could not speak; and so I left them both,
To bring this tidings to the bloody king.
And here he comes.
All hail, my sovereign liege!

I love that speech