Dear Fellow Students, Your Opinions Interest Me. Tell me about... Hamlet.

After watching the two different versions, of the character Hamlet, given to us by Mr. Tangen. One can see that both actors interpret the part very differently. People in the audience will also interpret what the actors do differently. It would be good of me to form my own opinion about this video, but I will not. Instead, it is time the opinions of other people are viewed. To be a good actor, you have to be a good audience. It’s always interesting to see how each person interprets things differently in life.

One fellow blogger, Daniel Paredes, wrote about the different interpretations. He explained how in "Branagh version, Hamlet is more noble" and a "statuesque figure." He then compared how Tennant's version "Hamlet is a more vulgar and blunt character." This comparison, tells us about the character itself, and how the character is transformed depending on which actor it has been absorbed by. I agree with the blogger it is "amazing to see how great the difference can be between two of the actors portraying the same role."

The change in the way is interpreted is not solely based on what the actor wants to do with his part, but also what the director wants. I am sure that both men had some direction to what they were doing from others. This may be why the blogger, Laura Duarte, tells us that "it's safe to say that numerous versions of the play can exist." A whole entire plays existence is based on what the actors do, but that’s not all. Scenery, the props, the outfit, the hair, the makeup, and especially: the rehearsals, all add up to create a plays success or failure. All these different ideas are placed together to form the idea which is trying to be made, "In one, Hamlet wears a black turtleneck suite. In the other, he wears a pair of jeans and an orange t-shirt. Both Hamlets are in luxurious castles and represent the rich boy of the time." The blogger has decided to look at what makes the character what we understand. Every character is interpreted differently, but in the end, they are both trying to say the same thing, "Although they differ in looks, they both transmit Hamlet's rage toward his uncle, his mother, and the situation overall."

The way an actor expresses their emotions is another key factor, as the blogger Trina Crochan tells us, “It is as if the actors are unleashing all the bottled-up emotion and opinion Hamlet experiences. Also, both actors captured the anger Hamlet seems to continuously feel, and expressed it (with much shouting), bringing the script to life with their fervent tone of voice and energy-filled execution.” Expression is very important, without it, there is no character.
All these opinions justify what the viewer thinks of the different actors. Some may concentrate on their acting skills, other on their surroundings, and some on their emotions. What is important is that the message gets across to the viewer, so that they can understand what is being shown to them. Each person understands what the actors are doing differently, just like the actors interpret it in other ways.

Box 3, Spooollllll 5. Talking To myself

I was hoping my blog would end up being a blog which analyses, Krapps Last Tape, but after watching the piece all I could do was form opinions and thoughts. The man kept his opinions and thoughts recorded throughout his life. This old man listening (to what I assume) to his younger self creates those emotions to rebuild inside him, he is once again living those memories. Much like I mentioned about memories for the Father from The Road, the character does not relive those memories physically, but instead mentally. Those emotions he had when he met various women are still seen on his wrinkle lines, and he cries for his past. He cries about his past stupidity’s, but even finds himself agreeing with things he used to say.

Although he now has wrinkles, and his hair has gone white, it appears that he still does much of the same things he used to do when he was younger. At the start of the piece, we see him eating bananas, he has trouble eating those bananas. The recording talks about eating four bananas every day, and that he just so happened to have trouble, like his older self, eating some of the bananas. His younger self calls his even younger self foolish, and that he doesn't know what he is talking about. His now older self records his "last tape" and he almost says the exact thing, "Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years ago, hard to believe I was ever as bad as that. Thank God that's all done with anyway." Like his younger self he is still mesmerized by one specific woman’s eyes.

Younger self: “I asked her to look at me and after a few moments--(pause)--after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare. I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened."

Older self: "The eyes she had!"

His life is a constant reflection on his past and his past is constantly reflecting on both his past and his future. The old man talks about what he was like when he was young, and the young man talks about what he will be like when he is old, "Old Miss McGlome always sings at this hour. But not tonight. Songs of her girlhood, she says. Hard to think of her as a girl. Wonderful woman, though. Connaught, I fancy. (Pause.) Shall I sing when I am her age, if I ever am? No. (Pause.) Did I sing as a boy? No. (Pause.) Did I ever sing? No."

In reality, he is just talking to himself. Whether it be a future self or a past self, he is just analyzing his life and trying the comprehend different events. He still cries about the death of his mother, and still laughs at his old jokes, he even laughs in the same manner.

At the very end of the tape, he gives us a final reflection about his life ,"Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn't want them back." Now I have one question, does this mean he was satisfied with is life?

Box 3, Spool 5.

To Dream, Or Not To Dream?

Watching the Introduction to Hamlet, by Kenneth Branagh, was like my emotions taking a time machine back to the emotions I held each time I watched a trailer for a new Disney movie when I was smaller. I have never watched or really known the story of Hamlet, just like I never really knew who Mulan was untill I watched the Disney version(although most films tend to be only semi accurate).

The Introduction produced an excitement that most happy, up beat Disney Trailers created for me. It was colorful, there was adventure, there were great lines shot out at us, and there was romance.

It was especially Kenneths overall excitement of the play which has now interested me in Hamlet. He said he has been intrigued by this peice of work ever since he was 11, and has portrayed the character Hamlet himself, several times. It appears that Hamlet is a character who can be discovered time and time again.

What do I expect from Hamlet? Well, hopefull a new wonderful experience on the learning curve of Highschool. Hopefully this will be a more positive play. So far I have only read three of Shakesperes plays, and they all depressed me: Macbeth, Othello, and Romeo and Julliet. Supposedly, Hamlet is one of the most challenging and most exciting characters for a male actor to portray. That makes me wonder, what is the most exciting female part to portray?


And now for a little entertainment:




Rehersing our own version of Hamlet in class? Oh dear, I better start studying!

Barren, Silent, godless

Although the topic, about God, is not mentioned as often in the book The Road, like the relationship bettween the father and the son, or survival. It is still an interesting topic to look at, for how little it appears.

A reason why the appearance of God in the book is relevant is because the whole entire book is about the end of the world. Not quite the apocalypse described in the Bible, but all the same, pretty darn harsh. We have the classic confusion and the asking of God what is happening in ones life,"Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul? Oh God, he whispered. Oh God." It is human nature to ask why something is happening to us, but perhaps God isn't even taking part in the end of the world. He is no where to be found for the Father, his world is."Barren, silent, godless." The father is demanding, and he is silently in search for what god wants for him and his son, "He knew only that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke." This might also show that the father is uncertain if God actually excists. Never the less, he always mutters "God" when he is uncertain or frightened. He also calls to God when something miraculous happens to him, for example, when he finds the house with all the food he calls out , "Oh my God", in complete amazement.

God is not the only powerful being which is described, like in a previous stated, gods are also present in this world. But they are powerless, they no longer have a world which shows thier marvelous powers, "Tattered gods slouching in their rags across the waste" instead, they are now viewed as weak, and they can do nothing to change the worlds state but suffer in thier own creation, which is now falling apart.

Cormac McCarthy did not make the imprtance of God, or the gods, very grand in his book The Road, but God was still very much present in the lives of the Father and the son. Although the son may not know it, he does an action which has been done by many people before him: Pray.

"Dear people, thank you for all this food and stuff. We know that you saved it for yourself and if you were here we wouldnt eat it no matter how hungry we were and we're sorry that you didnt get to eat it and we hope that you're safe in heaven with God."

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End."- Revelations 22:13

What if Fitzgerald Wrote The Road?

Original Line By McCarthy: "The mumied dead everywhere. The flesh cloven along the bones, the ligaments dried to tug and taut as wired."

Fitgeralizied: "The twig like figures sparsed out across the land like lifeless yellow leaves at the end of fall. Thier corpses the only remaining memory of thier long gone history and their forgotten dreams. Their frozen identities still screaming with the decayed faces of their bodies."

by Rachel, Daniella, and Annamaria

Is it The Real World? Or Is It The Eyes Of memory?

I have only read up to page 150, but only from that portion of the book, I can clearly see all the main memories that affect why the father does certain things. His memories are much like the ones we see in a superhero comic book, or tv show. The Flashback into the past, and they remember every detail, which than affects whatever they do next,plus the people surrounding them. This is what happens to the father in "The Road", and he may not realise it, but it also affects his son.


His memories are sparked by familiar objects, or by a dream. The first one we encounter is with a phone, an object which was used in the world he use to know, "Then he picked up the phone and dialed the number of his father's house in that long ago." It was almost natural for him to want to call his father, it was a memory which was vivid, and being replayed physically. Both in his mind and in his body, he was back in time, calling his father, until his son brought him back to reality, "what are you doing?"

We find him remembering the things he had, his past, "He pushed open the closet door half expecting to find his childhood things" he is still living in the past, even though he is needed at present. Different objects spark different memories, "Some money, credit cards. His driver's license. A picture of his wife." He holds on to them like a treasure of gold, because they are objects that hold what he once knew.

Although a lot of his memories deal with a distant past, it also deals with a more recent past. The one about his long gone wife, "In his dreams his pale bride came to him out of a green and leafy canopy. Her nipples pipecalyed and her rib bones painted white. She wore a dress of gauze and her dark hair was carried up in combs of ivory, combs of shell". It is only in memories that the writer, Cormac McCarthy, truly allows himself to be descriptive. He drops all the senses, the colors, the thoughts on the Father, and its where we can truly compare the world of before to the world he is in now. The memory of his wife, is one of the most important and repeated memories, "What is it? she said. What is happening? I don’t know." He even holds on to her every word. It’s her memory which kills him, but also keeps him alive since his son is part of her, "He coughed till he could taste the blood and said her name aloud." He disagrees with what his last moments of her tell him about life " Death is not a lover. Oh yes it is. Please don't do this." and its might be what keeps him alive. The promise to never do what she did, even though he keeps this promise to himself, he sometimes falls into her arguments and starts to believe her, "you will not face the truth. You will not."

The past is always with the father, but he is also forgetting it, "The color of it moved something in him long forgotten. Make a list. Recite a litany. Remember." This show that the life he knew is getting farther and farther away, and perhaps less important. He even begins to realize that the world, which is now gone, is also being destroyed in his mind, "The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion. Colors. The names of birds. Things to eat. Finally the names of things one believed to be true. More fragile than he would have thought. How much was gone already?"

Okay. I know.

The Road. Blogger: read up to page 150. *note, blog contains original text along with added phrases* No other way to describe thier feelings for one another, but through specific pharses, and then some.

Child: Father, you reached out and touched my hand one night. Why?

Father: Wanted to make sure you were safe. *No, I had a nightmare of a horrid creature, and was hoping you were not dead. I had to know you still excisted outside the dream world*

Child: Okay.

Child: I am alright. I am still here. *No need to look at me. I am alright, even though I want to stop, cry, and die*

Father: *Son, I hope you are alright. No need for you to see this terrible world I see through these binoculors, maybe your mom was right, she was always right*

Child: Can I See?

Father: * No! You should not be seeing these things, your only a child! Children are easily traumatized! There is no hope in this view!* Yes. Offcourse... What do you see?

Child: Nothing.

Father: (sighs) Yes, I know. *There is nothing, but a hope for no hope*

Child: Can I ask a question? * This time PLEASE answer it truthfully dad.*

Father: Yes Offcourse.

Child: Are we going to die?

Father: *Ouch* I would have died if the boy didn't excist, he is all I have* He won't die,I can't let it happen* Sometime. Not Now.

Child: Okay *His voice quivered. Maybe dad doesn't know.*

Father: Okay What? *Son, don't losse hope. I might, but your the one item containing my hope*

Child: Nothing.* We are going to die! At least dad is confortimg* Just Okay.

Child: What would you do if I died?

Father: If you died I would want to die too. *For that would mean all hope would be lost in my life. If all hope is gone, than my life is meaningless*

Child: So you could be with me?

Father: Yes. So I could be with you. * God, I have to be with him*

Child: Okay.

Father: Here, Its a treat. For you.

Son: What is it, Papa?

Father: Go ahead, taste it. **you will never taste the world of before, but this is the closest I can get for you.**

Son: Its Bubbly.

Father: Yes, I know. * I know of a world you will never know of*

Son: You have some. * We must share memories that I do not know of*

Father: You drink it, I want you to have it.

Son: Its because I won't be able to drink one ever, isn't it?

Father: Ever is a long time. * darn, he read my mind*

Son: Okay.

Father: *He Whispered to the sleeping boy* I have you *showing he does not hold on to anything else. There is no later, this is later.*

Father: You mean you wish to be dead?

Son: Yes.

Father: Don't say that, its wrong to say that.

Son: How do I stop?

Father: I don't know. * I am in the same position. I can do nothing. I am worthless. Hopefully you have something to hold on, like I am holding on to you.