Really Minnelli

  Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet is widely considered one of the best adaptations to date, and he is regarded as the best Shakespearean actor in many circles. Although the play does feature a few comedic scenes, overall it has, quite fittingly, a very dull and melancholy theme to it. Death and afterlife in Olivier’s Hamlet is presented with uncertainty which is portrayed through Hamlet’s indecisiveness. In the famous “To be, or not to be” scene, Olivier (Hamlet) watches over waves crashing violently on some rocks beneath him from the top of the ramparts, where he considers suicide as he draws out a dagger, but decides against it as he seems to fear “…in that sleep of death what dreams may come”. It seems as if Hamlet is weary of life, but fears what may come after, which proves to be the deciding factor in him choosing to live. This theme of uncertainty of what happens after death seems to recur throughout the play. Another instance where Hamlet is bothered by this doubt is when he chanc

The Code Of Honor—A Duel in the Bois De Boulogne, Near Paris , wood-engraving after  Godefroy Durand ,  Harper's Weekly  (January 1875). Image from Wikipedia. The gentleman’s duel is an arrangement between two people where they engage in combat with matched weapons. This practice was particularly common during the 17th and 18th centuries, where the opponents faced each other in the event where one of the two parties had offended the other. The two parties would duel although it was most likely that both would survive in the end, as it was mostly considered a symbol of risking one’s life to restore honour to both parties. In The Twelfth Night, Viola, who is disguised as a man who goes by the name Cesario, has to face Sir Andrew in a duel, and before the duel Sir Toby Belch gives Sir Andrew advice by saying “so soon as ever thou seest him, draw; and, as thou drawest swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manh

Othello. Image from Wikipedia. Othello was a play written by Shakespeare presumably in the years 1603 and 1604, during which a peace treaty was signed between England and Spain. This might have brought about the memory of the War of Cyprus that occurred when Shakespeare was much younger, inspiring him to write a play set in Venice around the time of this war. Othello was a Moor that Shakespeare portrayed as a kind, brave and charismatic character, contrary to the common belief at the time where people usually saw Black Moors in rather disdainful light. In Act 1 Scene 3 of Othello, Iago tries to humiliate Othello in front of the Duke and judges by exposing Desdemona’s marriage to Othello, which was carried out without the consent of Brabantio. Previously, Iago and Roderigo wake Brabantio up and break the news of his daughter’s elopement “to the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor”, giving Brabantio the impression that she has been forced to wed. Othello arrives and agrees to settle the

Portrait of William Shakespeare. Image from Wikipedia.   Knowing a fair amount about Shakespeare’s life would help in understanding his plays better, and could even give you an entirely different perspective to them. In addition to that, you might even learn about the culture and the ways of society at that time. Happenings in Shakespeare’s life might have caused him to put them in his stories. Shakespeare bringing back people from the dead could mean that he had lost someone that he cared for (possibly his son, Hamnet) that he wanted to bring back, and since he couldn't, he let his imagination run free, and make the impossible only seemingly impossible in his world. So, Shakespeare bringing back someone from the dead in his plays could signify an important turning point in the storyline. Shakespeare might have been intrigued or amused by the Roman story, Menaechmi, which could have led him to write a very similar story that he called The Comedy of Errors. The two stories are so

Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. His works showcase the deepest feelings of humans, that the majority of us would be too ashamed to even admit the presence of. On reading Othello, I have been awed by such human emotion that is so vividly portrayed in Shakespeare's words. I also realised the amount of energy that a person, overcome with jealousy and hunger for power, is willing to put into another's downfall, instead of using this energy to improve oneself, and that even though this world has evolved in various aspects such as social and technological, those basic feelings are still prominently expressed and also underlie conflicts that occur at different levels, be it international or personal. The themes of his work are based on human feelings. He shows that by being infatuated by one thing, and by being overcome with strong degrading feelings, you become rather possessed and unable to function on activities that you believe to be