[ SECRET POST #2111 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2111 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 124 secrets from Secret Submission Post #301.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

06. http://i.imgur.com/Dnuzm.jpg

[insanenoodlyguy]

I'm curious. How is this anti feminist?

[(Anonymous)]

After the perfection that was Richard II, the rest of the Hollow Crown really was a letdown.

[fickletastictot]

I'll have to agree. Richard II was so beautiful and Ben Whishaw has proven yet again to be Crazy-Scary good as an actor.

[(Anonymous)]

They did Henry IV, right? What did you think of that one?

[sparklywalls]

IA. Although I found Jeremy Irons carried a lot of Henry IV to make it just above average. I was disappointed with Henry V. I wanted so badly to like Tom Hiddleston's portrayal because I like him but yeah, it just fell flat for me.

But IMO if any actor deserves an award from the series it is definitely Ben Whishaw.

[(Anonymous)]

See, I couldn't get past the fact that I felt like Ben Whishaw was just playing Richard II like Sebastian Flyte. So I preferred Henry IV Part One, and then mainly for the Hotspur scenes. Falstaff was a real letdown.

[intrigueing]

Uh...anti-feminist? What?

[(Anonymous)]

What didn't you like about it? I haven't seen it (although I'm sure I will when it inevitably airs on Masterpiece Theater) but I've always been interested in the different ways that play is interpreted.

[ooh_mrdarcy]

I would hardly call it the worst adaption I've seen, but I wasn't impressed either.

But what has it got to do with feminism? Unless you're referring to the fact that Henry V is not a feminist play.

[sparklywalls]

I read it as the OP thinks that we'll think they're anti-feminist for slating a female-directed adaption? IDK. It's not anti-feminist to not like something a woman did! If you hate it just because a woman did it then yeah, that's much more problematic.

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, Hiddleston is a lot more attractive when not Loki. Like, I just went whoa

[(Anonymous)]

hiddles was so ugly in this

[arcadiaego]

Yeah, feminism doesn't mean you're not allowed to dislike anything made by a woman. Next.

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't seen it, nor have I read the play, but Tom Hiddleston is hot as hell in that pic.

I'll have to check it out now you've got me curious about that adaptation.

[(Anonymous)]

Did the guy playing Henry give the Saint Crispin's Day speech as if he was full of doubt and anxiety? Looking for moral support from his lieutenants? Beseeching the audience to pity him in his angst? Treating every line like a question, especially ones that should end in exclamation?

Because that was the worst Henry V I've ever seen. (Just fyi, It was a play put on by a Shakespeare troupe of reasonable repute)

[(Anonymous)]

This just seems exactly like a lot of those butthurt Harry Potter/A Song of Ice and Fire/Lord of the Rings fans who freak out about how the adaptations don't match their specific vision of what it should be. Some adaptations will be to your taste and some won't be, but that does not make the rest of us idiots for enjoying them.

Then again, I have no idea how to judge Shakespeare productions because I enjoyed THC's Henry IV, Part 1 when I found it on YouTube and I've enjoyed a Western version of Much Ado About Nothing and a version of A Comedy of Errors set in 1920s New Orleans with a jazzy bent. I'm probably going to Shakespeare Hell for not taking his plays as deadly serious as I'm supposed to.

[(Anonymous)]

Damn I feel like I'm the only one who hated Richard III. The whole thing draaaaaggggged on forever and by the last quarter I fell asleep.

[la_petite_singe]

Wait, why though? I've read the plays too and I loved those films. :\ Only thing I didn't like was that he didn't do a Welsh accent when he was being "Harry Le Roy." I felt horribly cockblocked.

[(Anonymous)]

I liked it because Joe Armstrong and Harry Lloyd were in it together.

*obscure Robin Hood reference*

[(Anonymous)]

Studied it and seen loads of adaptations and this was probably one of the oddest ones in terms of cutting things. Yeah, OK, so the Fluellen stuff is a bit cheesy (and given that I last saw it on stage in Cardiff, that was probably why everyone was in hysterics at him) but it gives a bit of relief. Without the comedy, Henry V is just a load of pre-battle inspiring speeches.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

Argh, I edited the main bit of the secret because it sounded too bitchy, and now it doesn't make sense. :(

The original 'body text' had a line about Thea Sharrock being incompetent, rather than the line about expecting more, but that sounded wanky, so I changed it last minute.

Basically, I have real issues with women directing films about men and war because they seem to try and focus and emotions and frailty when that really isn't what the play is about.

Thea made Henry soft and stupid. She cut the hanging of Bardolph to such an extent that it was meaningless; the murder of the baggage boys just didn't happen in her adaptation (and yet, Henry still has his rage in the middle of the battle field, which just makes him look... what? I don't even know) and the speech before Agincourt ("we few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, be he ne'er so vile" was delivered to his knights! I can only conclude that the two of them are illiterate and have never encountered the play before. But then I let Mr Hiddleston off, because I heard him speak on Newsnight and he knows what he's on about. Therefore my conclusion is that Thea Sharrock is an idiot. But I'm not allowed to say that because 'her interpretation is just as valid as any and she was only trying to show Henry's human side'.

OK, that was maybe too long a topic for my secret. I just have a lot of rage.

[(Anonymous)]

I found part 1 really boring and now I can't bring myself to watch part 2. *sigh* Because I love Hiddles.

[(Anonymous)]

You're right. I tried to persuade myself that I lurved it, because I love 'Henry IV' and feel sort of tied to it. But everything after 'Richard II' was kind of stale.

I didn't mind the setting - it was almost aggressively 'realistic'. They had to shoot everything on location in Britain (including, er, France) because it was part of the Cultural Olympiad, hence all the unimpressive castles and grey skies. I didn't mind that everyone wore something vaguely mediaevel. Ish. (Except I'm not sure they wore quite so much tailored leather and definitely more saggy non-lycra tights)

'Richard II' was beautifully-staged and had a strong aesthetic, as well as a willingness to include pet monkeys, St. Sebastian-via-Derek Jarman, pink tights and mossy bridges. They had firm notions about things such as 'whether Richard is gay or not' and stuck to them. Ben Whishaw was regal, embarrassing, needy and entirely believable and Patrick Stewart completely owned his showpiece 'sceptred isle' speech.

You knew 'Henry IV' was in creative trouble when you saw the set. Everything utterly literal. The king in a big, cold echoey castle surrounded by silly hats, the tavern looking like a Disney-cartoon Olde Englishe Taverne. Falstaff was jolly (actually, he did the pathos well enough), Quickly was cackly and Hal was a smug prick (which he's meant to be, but he was a soap-opera smug prick rather than a Shakespearean one). But it was all so obvious, like the way soaps are directed.

You knew it was in *desperate* creative trouble when you saw the sauna scene. It's certainly a kind of step forward to see men lounging about all sweaty and semi-nude to distract the eye rather than women but it's still kind of sad. I liked the idea of fighting in scrappy bits of melty British snow to make the blood redder, but the fights were oddly boring.

'Henry V' was more of the same plodding. The fights were cheaper-looking and less thrilling than the ones shot in 1944. Henry, possibly as an interpretation, looked miserable and out of his depth for most of it (I'd expect this in the pre-battle scenes or the night scene but he really should pull it together and pretend to be optimistic. The director had the Idea that he gave his two big speeches to small groups of friends, which is bizarre - why would Henry's family and colleagues need bucking up rather than The Plain Troops? (which is the whole point of the night scene - he is forcibly shown his responsibility to the whole of the soldiery and the country. That's why he's paid so much. And he needs to be shown it because he's not a ~natural king, but the son of a usurper. He can't possibly risk looking scared and tired). Also the face-caked-in-dirt stuff went from 'gritty and authentic' to 'annoying and unconvincing' after a while. He's a bloody king, someone can surely pass him a flannel.

There was a small bit I loved that was wrong for the scene but beautifully acted. At the end of 'Crispin', he sort of catches Erpingham's eye and deflates into near-mumbling and awkward silence, as if he can't sustain A Glorious Rally any longer in the face of such odds. Subtly-worked and performed, but poor TH deserved better direction.

The romance scene at the end wasn't either funny or transactional, and kind of needs to be a bit of both. He just sort of... flirted ineptly, like a boy at a sixth-form disco (and what the hell was that velvet tunic? He looked like a tube). Although the watery and useless French Princess was well within 'Henry V' tradition ;D

(and I say this as a big fan of broad/random/crazy/mainstream adaptations just as long as they work. Oh and I love the Hiddles. Generally)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm surprised. Henry IV 1&2 and Henry V are my all time favourite Shakespeare plays and have been since I had to read IV 1&2 in grade nine, eleventy billion years ago and I liked them so much I read V just for kicks and to see how it ended and I LOVED all three of these adaptations and found Richard dull (though admittedly, the play has never been a fav.)

I even didn't mind the things they cut and the changes made for the adaptation. I mean, it wasn't perfect: like when three guys on horses ran past and that was supposed to be what gets him angry enough for the 'haven't been angry since I cam to France until this moment' bit, but overall, I found these to be brilliant adaptations.