Spoken English in film and television

My partner and I watched a recording of the film “Atonement” last night.  'Watched' being the operative word.  We both got the impression that the actors were ashamed of using their organs of speech - they hid so much sensual enjoyment by mumbling and swallowing their consonants and croaking their vowels throughout the film.

It is strange to have to remind actors and actresses that tongues and lips are used in sex and speech.  I thought it ironic that Vanessa Redgrave, appearing right at the end of the film, and seemingly at the end of her character’s life, to give what was, in fact, a short master class on how it’s done.

I remember a fellow theatre director in 1969 complaining that theatre schools no longer taught their students how to speak on stage – now they seem not to teach them how to speak to any effect other than to irritate.

Hamlet: Fortinbras - the king is dead, long live the king

Hamlet, the play, begins with Denmark preparing to repel an invasion led by Fortinbras, a Prince of Norway.  This is soon dealt with and the audience sits back to enjoy the twists, turns and complication resulting from Hamlet’s meeting with the Ghost of his murdered father.  It isn’t until Act 4, scene 4 that, to everyone’s surprise, the matter of Danish sovereignty re-emerges.  However, it goes away again so quickly as to be thought dispensable by some directors and is cut - I think wrongly.  The audience needs a reminder of the initial threat to Denmark’s sovereignty to fully appreciate what happens at the very end when the crown falls into the Fortinbras’ hands almost, one might say, by sheer chance. I think this is a play about the succession to the throne and how rottenness, ghostly visitations, uncertainty, murder, piracy, madness, and villainy, fades into insignificance under the steady guiding hand of heaven - an idea that is easy to lose sight of in a secular world.

Claudius’ act of diplomacy towards Fortinbras yields a rich harvest for the state, if not for his court. It sets in train a sequence of events, for the most part played off-stage, that finally puts the right man at the top. Since the Norwegian Prince sheds no Danish blood, strictly observes protocol when setting out with his army to cross peacefully Danish land, and is elected to the monarchy by Hamlet, he succeeds to the throne squeaky clean. Although we are told very little about Fortinbras, what we are able to glean shows him to have ‘a little
touch of Harry’ about him. Like his famous prototype, Henry V, he is warlike and headstrong, nevertheless obedient to those in authority over him and, when it matters, an opportunist. Hamlet has this to say:

    Witness this army of such mass and charge,
    Led by a delicate and tender prince,
    Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff’d,
    Makes mouths at the invisible event,
    Exposing what is mortal and unsure
    To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
    Even for an eggshell.
                                               (IV.iv.7)

I am interested by the phrase ‘divine ambition puff’d’.  If Shakespeare is not using the word ‘divine’ loosely, and I think he is not - divine, and the idea of things divine, is used seriously in other parts of the play, ‘puff’d’ is a straightforward description of a man buoyed up by heaven’s will.   Divinity and Heaven are important in this play. Fortinbras is portrayed as a man of high mettle - and a very proper person to win the Danish throne.

Fairness. The carrot: to eat of, or beat with…

It is only fair to say that I’ve got a cold and so what follows is a grunge.

For me, fairness has to do with whether I feel effective or ineffective at any one time.  And Enthusiasm seems to be an important element in the matter.  I think it was the Scottish philosopher, Thomas Carlyle, who wrote that when a man is enthusiastic about something he has no need of an armchair.  The world is a rough old place.  If I am hurt in any way and cannot do anything practical to improve matters I feel ineffective.  The Government might think about helping us all to feel effective, what ever our circumstances – I am wary about giving us more and more choices, because to be inundated by choice comes perilously near to dividing our minds - to rule, I wonder?

 My picture of a donkey lashed by a carrot-whip says something about the country's present plight, something that I find hard to put into words - atchoo!

complaints - the law is an ass

The director inocently calls for the character of that name

I do wonder at the sense of the general principal of the new law that, to me, looks as though bosses will have to have a lawyer at his/her side at every minute of the working day just in case an 'unacceptible' word slips out. 

Theatre rehearsals are peppered with moments when the creative spirit breaks loose and words are said in haste - words, because they are often very witty are readily repeated. An actor manager in the Park outdoor theatre in London, finding an actress still pulling on a stocking when she was meant to be on stage, snapped, ‘it’s no good looking up your entrance now, dahling, you’ve missed it!’ I remember it sped round theatre land within minutes of it having been said some 60 or more years ago. If heard now think what might result if overheard by an employee of an histrionic sensibility and assertively litigious frame of mind! And its not only in the theatre that you find such people...

my paintings now arrived

Here are two light-hearted painting I did some years back.   

I find looking at people looking at pictures in art galleries as rewarding as what is on show.

The 'Flintshire' send up, is a nostalgic egg tempera painting I did when living in Aberdeen. They are in memory of those wonderful railway posters in the 1920s-30s, and of the magical Russel Flint - he of the fabulous nudes - but even of much better landscapes!

Both are about quarto size if not smaller. I like egg tempera. A lovely quiet medium. Acrylic is OK, not as good as oils for me. but I use acrylic a lot becuase it is handy, especially if  used by putting dabs of the stuff on kitchen baking paper,placed on top of old fashiond blotting paper, placed on a tray in which a little water has been added. The paint stays usable for sometime - days even if the tray is covered in between whiles.

Yesterday - I couldn't open these pictures and got cross - bingo, today, here they are - Wow!

Now am painting one of my mythological pictures - Orestes in the hands of the Eumenides, poor devil - I find now that I think more about the ancient greek drama than I do about any other - shall have a go at the Trojan Women next - the story is so full of meaning with today's displaced, killed, raped people haunting our daily news