Author's Sketchbook: Warmth

drawn on an iPad 2 using a Wacom Bamboo stylus in SketchBook Pro

Decoding Hamlet in Three Questions Part 3 (Favorites 02: 06)

Finishing the analysis of what makes Hamlet a great story as a puzzle.

Keeping this short, as the series is now running from August to October and further on...

"Now might I do it, pat, now he is a praying..."
Eugene Delacroix 1844
image courtesy of wikipedia

Question Three: What good does revenge really do?

If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not; 

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be

A couch for luxury and damned incest.

But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive

Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,

To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!

 The Ghost to Hamlet, Act I, Scene V

If Hamlet had remained inactive, had not tried to revenge his father's death, how would things have turned out?

Polonius would be alive, so Laertes wouldn't have immolated himself in his campaign for mayor of Crazy Town and Ophelia wouldn't have exited via Artax mud bath.

It's conceivable that, less distracted by whether his nephew/step-son is trying to kill him, King Claudius may have paid more attention to Norway's false overtures of peace, and Elsinore Castle may not have been overrun.  At least he might have noticed Fortinbras's forces closing in hadn't all been playing Who Dies First with the pointy poisons in the hall.

Gertrude would have lived, Rosencrantz and Guldenstern would have lived.

Hamlet would have lived.  

And so would King Claudius, who got to be King by murdering his brother.

So we come to the same question Hamlet is struggling with for most of the play. How can he possibly love peacefully with the knowledge of his murdered father hanging over his head?

He is the rightful heir of the kingdom, and if Claudius had not married Gertrude IN ADDITION to killing the old king, Prince Hamlet would have risen to the throne, and would have had the rights of the courtiers, counselors, and soldiers of the realm at his disposal. Would the ghost have shown himself to the guards upon the wall then? What would it have disclosed? Much easier to kill a young king's uncle than to kill the king himself. 

But she did marry him, and the fortune and favor and power passed to him. Obviously the real problem for a Hamlet in the technical sense is that if be murders Claudius he will almost certainly be out to death himself, however noble his motives, for having committed treason against Denmark in assaulting the Royal Person. Many suppose this to be the essence of what he's driving at in the first part of the famous To Be soliloquy, whether to pursue regicide as a means of suicide, and escaping his trouble in both ways by those means.

And note that he finally is freed and immediately able to take violent action against his smiling dominant villain the King once he is assured by Laertes that he, Hamlet, is dying, and further that it's the King's plan that's done him in. 

A lot of evil is done by Hamlet in pursuit of the King's life; no need to revisit the body count, just see above.

So what good did he manage to do?

He established beyond a doubt, at least so far as his own understanding was concerned, that Claudius was guilty of his father's death, and the sting to the King's conscience was at least a little punishment he was able to inflict.

He rooted out and did away with two untrustworthy and opportunistic scoundrels, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,

who betrayed their friend to the death in favor of a good place with the King and would therefore likely have sided with anyone if they thought stood to gain from it. 

He ended Polonius's life on a relative high note; his children were left with a high opinion of him, before the various ridiculous schemes he was exercising for their 'benefit' drove them to distraction and despair against him. (I may be out on a limb with extrapolating this one, but near with me). 

He did the kingdom of a ruler whose sole object in ruling was not the good of his people or loyal subjects but the satisfaction of his own desires and the protection and promotion of his own interests. Whether Fortinbras of Norway is any better an option is left unwritten. 

We never hear of it, but presumably he brought the soul of his father some peace by avenging his murder.

What good do I think Hamlet did from my own reading? That's the real puzzle here, is what each reader ultimately takes away, what face they see in the ambiguous glass of the story's framing. 

image courtesy of wikimedia commons

When I try to decide whether Hamlet did any good, I think of two other questions. (Don't be alarmed, we're getting close to the end at last).  First is, could he have done otherwise than he did, and second was touched on earlier, if he did willfully succeed in killing the King for his own reasons, is he any better than Claudius himself?

This is where our three questions about the play finally tie together and read from each other to figure it all out, or at least indicate how each person may choose to see the play in his own way by his own answers as it were. 

In my view there are three key places where Hamlet could have done otherwise than the play has him do. In each of these points of decision on his part, the question of whether he's justified in his pursuit of vengeance, that is, whether or not he's nuts, is a key deciding factor.

The first time is when he insists in following the ghost although Horatio holds him back. 

“My fate cries out!” he declares, breaking the holds Horatio and the guards have on him, and the whole dark plot of the play rises to meet him in consequence.  If he hadn’t charged off, he could have avoided everything that followed.

But at this point, if we were to ask him the first question of this analysis, he would have a definite answer, and it’s what drives him forward. Hamlet is sure that he’s not crazy, he is sure he’s justified in wanting to pursue the Ghost and hear what it has to say.  There is no doubt in his mind, he is in the right.

The second is when he wavers and decides not to kill Claudius a confession (possibly the hub, crux, and lynchpin of the entire story). 

Compare this with the first moment of indecision, following the Ghost.  Hamlet could not be less sure whether he is justified in his action or not; or rather, he is sure that killing Claudius is the right thing to do, but he appears to convince himself that it is best not to do it just then, when Claudius is vulnerable, unprotected, and caught unawares while praying after the play-within-a-play.

But rather than getting the job done, he backs away, saying he will wait for a better chance, since if Claudius is killed while his sins are forgiven, he will go straight to heaven, which he declares is no real revenge.

Unlike the first chance he had to turn back, where he plunged forward, here he has the chance to plunge forward, and instead holds back.

This limitation -- don’t kill the King if he’s praying and forgiven -- was not set on him by the Ghost, and it seems to be Hamlet simply rationalizing an easy choice in the moment.  But it does, however, reference a point that the Ghost explicitly made in his rant: that he was killed without being shriven, without his sins forgiven by the church, and is therefore laboring in Purgatory when he could be in heaven now if he had died under better circumstances.

What good is it, Hamlet asks himself, to kill Claudius if his suffering is not at least equal to those of his father once dead?

Of course we are also privy to another layer of irony in the situation: Claudius confesses to himself and to us that he is actually unable to repent in earnest, and therefore feels that he is not free from sin as Hamlet supposes at the time.

But whether he knows this or not, if Hamlet had plunged ahead, and had managed to kill Claudius just then, though he may have died at once for for regicide and treason, he could have avoided all the collateral damage to the character list that follows Polonius’ death.

So maybe it would be fair to say that Hamlet does have an answer to the question, are his actions justified, but that answer at that moment is “No.”  Or so he convinces himself, apparently to be able to get out of it.

Again, we are left to decide for ourselves whether he is in earnest; as too often happens in real life, it is likely a mixture of justified decision-making and rationalization.

Third is when he goes through with the duel with Laertes in spite of his foreboding,  and Horatio's too, that his loss and death are in it. 

Here, we see the resolved Hamlet from Act I return: he knows he may very well die in the next few hours or minutes, but declares “The readiness is all,” and goes to meet the challenge.  He is certain his actions are justified, and he acts accordingly.

So what gives?  Where is the unresolved Hamlet from the second moment of truth discussed above?  What has changed since the last time he was given the chance to seize his destiny, and shrank back?

The answer to this question leads directly into the question of whether he's any better than Claudius in his pre-planned and intended regicide. And for guidance on this point, we turn to the answers from the difference between character and behavior.

Why did Claudius kill King Hamlet?  To get King Hamlet out of the way, so he could marry Gertrude and take the throne as his own.  It was to put forward his own projects when he knew he could get away with it.  He suffers guilt over it, but he does not repent.  He did what he knew he had to do, and he got what he wanted.  He behaved in accordance with his character, then if only then, as he smiles and pretends not to be a villain the rest of the time (or at least until Laertes’s bloodlust comes along handy to his plans).

Why does Hamlet want to kill King Claudius?  To correct the wrong done by the King in killing his father, and to keep the kingdom of Denmark from a King like Claudius.  But it’s not in the nature of his character to kill someone, even when they deserve it.  The violence is a form of behavior that goes against who he is.  He may not claim to be afraid of death, or of dying, in his endless reflections on suicide as a solution for his grief and his melancholy, but it’s clear that he struggles with plans of killing and of dying, even when it’s supposed to be the right thing to do.

So what changed, that he goes with an even temper and an apparently untroubled mind to meet his fate?  Two key experiences between the second point of no return and the third.

First, he got over his dread of killing on his way to England, when he passes armies lead by Fortinbras of Norway (on the way towards Elsinore, but never worry about that) ready to die for their bloody cause, to fight over an area not large enough to serve as a graveyard for everyone who’d ready to die for it.  His own violent plans dwindle in comparison to this, and on the spot, he declares from that point on, “my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth.”

(For any who may doubt that he’s willing to kill from that point on, consider his casually swapping his name for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s when he finds the papers ordering that the bearer be put to death.  They die surprised and unmourned in a foreign country, and Hamlet tosses them off with a few words later.)

Selous - Hamlet with skull (1897)
image courtesy of triggs.djvu.org

Second is that all-important scene in the graveyard.  Hamlet directly confronts the idea of death, of being dead, and all the emotional and physical transformations it entails, and comes away willing to face death if it is needed.  He resolves that everything changes, that he must die at some time, and decides to put it to the best use he can.  The readiness is all.

My purpose in bringing up the behavior vs. character question is simply this: would Claudius have been willing to die for a cause that did not satisfy his desires?  Of course not, because what benefit would he get from a plan where he winds up dead and unable to enjoy himself in the end?  Would Hamlet have been willing to kill to seek the success of only his own ambition?  Of course not, because he knows he would be unable to live with himself being no better than Claudius.

Until Hamlet's character changes by his experiences, he is unable to go through with what he must -- and even still, his ultimate vengeance is marred, debatable, and inconclusive in its motive or merit.

And this is all assuming his character has changed -- that's just the way I read it, ask me again next year, I may say something different.

It's a complicated and a simple story, wonderful and awful. There is far far far more to it than its merit as a puzzle story, you could probably study the thin for years or longer and still find new things to marvel at, new ways to consider it. 

For me the most fascinating thing about it are the way its meanings and intended lessons seem to shift and change with each reading, as I age and pass through different phases of my life, so that it's not just one story but many, I am not one reader, but many.

That and the feeling I get that a hundred other people who read it could see a hundred different stories, each just as lucid and meaningful. 

But what about you?

Original Excerpt: The Prodigal (second in a series)

(part one)

Photo by Nick Turner

image courtesy of unsplash.com

Still seated, the middle man took out his little book and glasses once more.  "The second portion is Motor," he said, and again he read aloud:

The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yardAnd made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.And from there those that lifted eyes could countFive mountain ranges one behind the otherUnder the sunset far into Vermont.And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,As it ran light, or had to bear a load.And nothing happened: day was all but done.Call it a day, I wish they might have saidTo please the boy by giving him the half hourThat a boy counts so much when saved from work.His sister stood beside them in her apronTo tell them “Supper.” At the word, the saw,As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap—He must have given the hand. However it was,Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,As he swung toward them holding up the handHalf in appeal, but half as if to keepThe life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—Since he was old enough to know, big boyDoing a man’s work, though a child at heart—He saw all spoiled. “Don’t let him cut my hand off—The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!”So. But the hand was gone already.The doctor put him in the dark of ether.He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.No one believed. They listened at his heart.Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.No more to build on there. And they, since theyWere not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

The hair rose all over my body.  Again I couldn't swallow.  He only read it once.  The lights, again, went out.

I leapt to my feet, but they grabbed me in the dark, the right-hand and left-hand men, impossible that they were so strong, they were lifting me up, taking me off my feet, and one was grabbing and pulling away from my body, against my struggles, the shoulder and right arm.

"You will have only a short time once I say 'Go,'" said the man in the middle from the darkness somewhere.  There was a low hum, and a whirr, as of a small motor spinning to life.  It sounded small, but that didn't reassure me.  Someone was pinching the skin ofmy arm.  "I want you to knock the block over."

Something was wrong.  They knew why I was here.  This wasn't the test.  They were pretending now.  I wanted to tell them everything, and plead for my life.

"The block isn't there," I shouted instead, terrified of what they would do.  A small sting, another needle, halfway between my elbow and thumb.  The light over the table came back on.  If there was a current this time, I was too distracted to remember it now.  I knewit wouldn't end with the needle. I knew something was coming. I didn't know what it was, or thought I didn't: to read me a poem aboutit first? Did they know? Was this real? Test or torture or maybe, maybe, empty threat?

The whir of the motor grew louder.  "You will need to concentrate," said the man, "as we will be unable to help you until you pass."  He was holding something, but the light on the table was too dim to see.  The motor sound was everywhere.  I was gasping and choking and crying out, crying for help, but no one could hear me.

I writhed in the grasp of the two men, but they held like statues of steel.  The middle man was grabbing my wrist, holding my arm firm in the air, near the table.  I felt the warmth of the light on the table on my hand, the hairs of my forearm.  The Middle Man was holding up the saw blade in the darkness over my head.  The whirring jumped up an octave and got louder; ready to bite.  Not an empty threat.  "This may sting," he said, and the blade entered my arm.

It was over before I was finished experiencing its beginning; a splat, skin tore, tissues parted, bone must have come away like butter under a hot knife.  My arm was taken from me about four inches below the wrist.  I cannot forget the sound it made, but I will not describe it to you.  The anticipation had been worse than the pain, because apart from the stinging, at first, there was none.  Just cold empty nothing flailing away at the stubby end of my arm.  Nothing, in the shape of my missing hand.  The instant it was done, the Middle Man said, "Go."

Go what?  I remembered what he had said, and seeing the block, but I was too busy screaming and gasping and trying to get looseto think of anything but the injury.  I felt the blood leaving me, the cold coming in, taking its place.  Soon there'd be nothing inside mebut the cold, and nothing outside me but what used to be me.

"You are running out of time Irving," said the Middle Man in the darkness.  "You are bleeding to death.  We can save your life, but first you have to knock over the block."

I moaned and whimpered, I uttered oaths, I swore vengeance in the vilest terms that came to mind.

"Look at the block Irving!" said a voice, not the voice of the Middle Man. I didn't know whose voice it was.  I wasn't sure it wasn't inside my head.  "They're trying to kill you!" I heard it say.  "Just do what they tell you!  Look at the block!"

I looked at the table, still trembling with pain, but saw no block.  Each pulse was pounding on my arm's end like a hammer through a drum.  There was no block!

"Hurry Irving," said the Middle Man, still helping to hold my arm in place, holding it towards the light and the table, sounding bored.

"You can feel it," said the voice, "even if you can't see it."

I don't know what happened.  Even now, I can look at the moment from before and after and from either side, and I am uncertain.  The nothing at the end of my arm was in the shape of a hand, and I felt it push against something else, or I should say another nothing, one that might have had the shape and texture of a wooden block.  It was a lie that told me it was true, and even if I didn't believe it, the thing that had been my hand did.

"You can feel it," said the voice.

"I can feel it," I said.  My body hurt where the men held me.  I was shuddering all through chest and spine, and very very cold.

"Knock it over," said someone, someone I hated, sounding bored.

I touched the block again.  It was firm and smooth.  I pushed against its side.  

"Knock it over," I said.  I pushed harder.  I felt it fall.

The brights came on, and I was let fall.  The floor, hard but warm.  Someone speaking, other two were blurring about, doors opened.  I imagined a tourniquet, and then blacked out.

*  *  *

Nota Bene: The text appearing above in italics is, as before, not original content. 

The poem is called Out, Out—, by Robert Frost, first published in 1916

Comic: Safety First

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Decoding Hamlet in Three Questions Part 2.55 (Favorites 02: 05)

Picking up, once again, where we left off last time, and moving forward in order to get this finally done. (This is, by the way, part 3/3 of a post that is part 2/3 of a post that is part 2/3 that's part 2/4. Levels!)

detail of the engraving of Daniel Maclise's 1842 painting The Play-scene
image courtesy of wikipedia

We're in a character-by-character study of the question:

Question Two: What is the difference between behavior and character?

I clearly underestimated the number of words I had to type on this topic.  No such thing as too much content!

This ought to be a shorter entry than the preceding two entries, so we'll have some room for wrap-up discussion of the question before moving on.

Moving forward with the task at hand, there's the

PLAYERS

who are exactly what they seem, for a change.  But they exist only to play parts that they are not.  Are they different from any of the others, then?

Two CLOWNS, grave-diggers

image copyright Castle Rock Entertainment

These guys often come up in discussions of favorite characters from the play; the more talkative of the two certainly owns one of the best scenes of the entire play, and is notably the only character Hamlet can't manage to get the better of in a game of words.

Most importantly, they make a mockery of burying the dead, sing and laugh while digging graves, and talk lightly over the whole business while unearthing the bones of a jester.  Is that the way you're supposed to act in the internment business? (Played excellently by Billy Crystal in the '96 Branagh film -- the first time I grasped that the character really was supposed to be funny)

Anyone remember the

ENGLISH AMBASSADORS

at the end of the play?  "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead."  Not many more lines than this.  

I'm not really going to count these as characters -- more of a good opportunity for a cameo perhaps.

BUT - They walk in and say "What's the point of our coming all this way, there's no one here to thank us for our trouble in doing this good deed."  When you're dealing with the court, courtiers are never in short supply.

GERTRUDE, Queen of Denmark, and mother to Hamlet

image copyright Warners Brothers Home Entertainment

Possibly the most inscrutable suspect on the list, possibly the most important, and also the least.

She's the most inscrutable because she seems, at all times and in all scenes, to be doing her best to achieve two inconsistent goals: the preservation of Hamlet's life and happiness, and the preservation of her new husband Claudius's good standing as King in Denmark.  Easy to assume that she's in earnest, and doesn't realize these two goals are mutually exclusive; she's just trying to do what's right, and sees no reason why they should be working against each other.

But if she did know, and knew that in the end either Hamlet would be dead or Claudius, and she wanted to play both sides in order to preserve the good graces of either, whoever comes out on top, how would her behavior be different?

She's one of the only characters who doesn't get a single aside, a single monologue; everything she says she says to other characters, usually in reaction to someone else.

She's the most important suspect because, ultimately, all this trouble started with her.  The betrayal of the old king by Claudius started in her, the Queen's, bedroom.  Hamlet's primary source of anguish and distraction, before the ghost appears with its horrible vendetta, is the swiftness of her union with his uncle after his father's sudden death.

Someone, sometime, and I cannot find the reference just now, but it wasn't me, pointed out that Hamlet is only able to kill Claudius once Gertrude is dead.  There is certainly a drop of tension when the queen dies, and a lot of the momentum and steam seems to drain out of that action-movie sword-fight scene.  The King's death is almost anticlimactic, now that we know Hamlet will die, Laertes will die, and queen Gertrude, the reason Claudius began his betrayal, is dead by his continued poisonous schemes.

I think Hamlet is somewhat more complicated a character and a story than the Oedipus myth arc, although I don't think it's wrong to compare the two.  Again, the only person Hamlet obsesses over more than Claudius is his mother, and in a play stacked floor to ceiling with double meanings, there is no way to consistently claim that many of the lines Hamlet and Gertrude exchange in their closet mean only what they appear to mean, and not what they seem to suggest, about their relationship.

But I say also she's the least important suspect, since she has almost no control over the events of the story, and if every one of her lines were changed, or given to someone else, except maybe those wherein she declares to Hamlet that she does not see the ghost of his father, and the play would turn out almost exactly the same.

I choose personally to interpret Gertrude in a charitable light, as perhaps does the Ghost, who asks Hamlet to leave her out of the scheme for revenge.  She could have not known that her second husband killed her first, and in a circus of insane and unhappy people, I'll weigh at least that much good will in the balance against the miserable madness.

But what do you think?

OPHELIA, daughter to Polonius
It's a play of contrasts, to say the least.  We have Hamlet, who loses a father, isn't really insane (or is he though?) but pretends to be, and we have Ophelia, who loses a father, and apparently really does go mad, much to the horror of her brother and the other members of the court (absent Hamlet, to England, or some pirates whatever), and goes and drowns herself for no reason, or for grief.

image copyright Touchstone pictures

Could she be faking her madness like Hamlet?  It seems unlikely, what would it profit her to do so?  Of all the sad turns the play takes in its downward spiraling, Polonius's daughter's seems the most unfortunate and authentic.  I think she probably really does just go unhappily nuts in her own way; whether she could have snapped out of it or not if she'd lived may be an irrelevant question with the kingdom falling apart anyway.

The dissonance in her character I'd like to emphasize instead is that between what she expects will happen when she follows instructions, pretty much the only thing she does in the play before she goes nuts, and what actually does happen.

She's told by Laertes to be wary of Hamlet, and she says she will.  Polonius shoves his nose into the matter, and straight up orders her to break off all communication with him, so as not to make him a fool, and she does this as well.

Then she confides the love letters Hamlet sent her to her father, and he turns around and shows them to the King and Queen as if they were no more than evidence in a trial, so much for respecting her feelings (to say nothing of making Polonius look like a fool, read the scene again, it's one of his most Tobias-like moments).

Then she agrees to the King's request to try and catch Hamlet in a delirium of love by rebuking and returning his letters and tokens while Polonius and the King look on, and because Hamlet sees straight through their charade, is raked utterly across the coals for it.  Hamlet denounces her, without revealing directly that he knows she's their spy, and she is heartbroken.

What did she expect?  Clearly Hamlet acts differently than she'd hoped he would, because of her grief, but it's hard to see how he could have acted otherwise.  We're left to suppose that she doesn't really understand the situation she's in, or else thought better of Hamlet's character than he was capable of delivering.  Either way, it's the last time we see her taking orders directly and following them without question; next is the play within a play, and Hamlet's crazy head is in her lap, Polonius looking obnoxiously on, next time after that, she's snapped.  Would she have continued to play nice if Polonius had lived?  I hope not.

Somewhat like the courtiers and followers of the crown, sucking up to the King because they want his favor and being ultimately destroyed for their efforts, Ophelia does everything that's asked of her because she thinks it's the right thing to do, and is ultimately repaid only in anguish and grief.  She's not obsequious, she's just doing her best, but she's still let down utterly because the men she looks up to and takes orders from are liars and mercenaries and fools.  The play is once again a story of a kingdom turned upside down and decaying from the inside out.

GHOST of Hamlet's Father
How do we interpret the motives of a ghost?

I choose instead to refer to the original entry in this series, in which the key point is Hamlet's interpretation of the ghost's appearance and instructions, and his resulting indecision, rather than drag the comparative merits of ghostly truthfulness or deceit back up at length.

I will leave the
LORDS, LADIES, OFFICERS, SOLDIERS, SAILORS, MESSENGERS, and ATTENDANTS
to your analysis, see if you can do anything to prove that their behavior and character are indicative of each other.

-

So that's the end of the list, and a much longer and more rambling analysis of it than I'd expected to make as well.

The question is, whats the difference between behavior and character?

Actors playing characters, and characters playing characters, and these having extra flashes of other characters in the midst of all else, too.

The answers we get from the list show that the two often could not be more different.  How can you trust anyone in such a den of deceitful, double-dealing, foolhardy crazies?  Almost no one in the play acts the way they really feel, or are trying in earnest to bring about what they want fairly and honestly.  And the deceit feeds on itself and grows and grows as the work goes on.

But I think the answer also point to three key indicators to tell them apart.

First is motive.  Why is the person acting the way that they are?  If it seems to have nothing to do with their benefit, suspect them at once, they are probably up to no good.  Seek always to figure out what the character stands to gain through their actions.  If it's apparently nothing, you probably need to seek further, or revaluate how you think they're acting.

Second is consistency.  If someone like Fortinbras is your indifferent but abiding enemy one minute, and your earnest best friend the next, for the love of God suspect them of having plans not in your best interest.  The same goes for Hamlet towards his family members,  Claudius towards Laertes (or anyone), or Laertes towards Hamlet at the end.  Keep points one and two in mind!

Third is stress level.  When the chips are down, when things get real, when the trouble is real and needs direct attention, watch how people act.  Sooner or later, if their superficial behavior has been running contrary to their real feelings beneath, they'll show you who they really are.

Ahh! Curse your sudden, but inevitable, betrayal!
image copyright 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

The unfortunate thing is the play's wild success comes partly from its fidelity to what we so often experience in real life.  Who can honestly say they've never acted a part they didn't really feel was the way they really felt inside?  That didn't accurately reflect who we think we truly are, deep down, and only really showed others what we want, or how we wish we are?

Well, among other things that's called behaving yourself.  To a certain extent we all do it all the time.

Maybe the real question Hamlet asks is, how often do we get to show the real selves we are to the world?  When we do, is it the self we believe we truly are?  Are we happy with what we see?

Author's Sketchbook: Periphery

drawn on an iPad 2 using a Wacom Bamboo stylus in SketchBook Pro

Some Brief Pointers on Writing Movie Reviews

Photo By Charlie Foster
image courtesy of unsplash.com

Short post for today: a friend of mine over at Literally, Darling asked if I could jot down a few quick notes on how I write movie reviews, and here's what I came up with.

The four easiest questions to answer in a review:

1. If the creators used your time watching the movie well or not, and if so why.
2. If they wasted any of your time, and if so how.
3. Whether you could tell what they were trying to do, and what their intention was.
4. Whether you think they succeeded in making that intention a reality, and if so why.

For me, keeping these four questions in mind makes critical thinking of creative works way more simple and straightforward.

Write about what you like and what you don't

When you watch the movie, make quick notes of whatever jumps out at you as a good thing, whether it's clever/amusing, intriguing or captivating, or pretty, or sad (in the good way), or original, or anything else that makes you smile, or jump (in the good way), or pay attention in general.

It will likely be easier to make note of the things you don't like, or at least that's how it usually seems to me (I may have an overly judgmental personality).  Any time you're knocked out of the moment, made suddenly aware that you're not living a set of experiences but sitting in a room watching footage of people on a screen, jot it down in case you need it.

Movies, in the end, are the result of a series of decisions made by the writers who developed the ideas and dialogue, to the producers who planned the sets and schedules (and everything else), the actors who personified the characters, the directors who kept everything going one specific way, and editors who piece the moving images together, (and many other people) and what you're evaluating are whether these decisions were good ones, whether they made the final product better or worse.

You're going to have the easiest time commenting on things that personally spoke to you, one way or another.

The things you remember about a movie easily afterward are probably the important parts

As with any creative work, memorability is sort of the ultimate test: whether or not something stays in the mind, for good or bad reasons, is in many ways the first step towards its being successful.

You're more likely to talk about it with friends, to bring up its jokes or dialogue later, to want to watch it again later, the more likely it is to have a wider impact on pop culture in general and to therefore age well or poorly.

After the movie's done, I look back over my notes, try to amend or expand on anything notes that seem incomplete (if I can recall what I was getting at), and to jot down the things which stand out most clearly in my mind.  Then I do it again the next day, if I have the time, and see if there's anything that makes the cut (read: hasn't been deleted by my brain already) that I didn't write down before or deserves an underline.

Most likely if you remember it, there's a reason, you just have to consider it until you figure that reason out.

If it's unimpressive, don't be afraid to say so

So far I've been lucky in that all the reviews I've written have been for movies I particularly enjoyed or thought I had something worthwhile to say about.  The people I work with are generous enough to let me pick and choose the films I review as a hobby, rather than a profession, so I'm able to limit my efforts to the kind of work with which I can do my best.

In other words, I haven't had to write a review yet about the much, much, much more frequent occurrence of a movie failing to impress me when I expected it to, or failing to rise to the standards it sets for itself in its unfolding.

In other words, movies often start out with more promise than they deliver on: if this happens, make sure to mention it.  The unfortunate truth is that there are a lot of films in the world, and most of them are mediocre.  More often than not the only meaningful thing to describe are the things they could have done but didn't.

If all else fails, watch some special features

I'm not a movie maker; I've never worked in hollywood, or anywhere else in cinema, and I don't know first-hand what a big production is like.

But having a layman's knowledge of how films are made and come together can be extremely helpful in answering the four questions listed above, particularly in terms of understanding the technical craft of the media.  That is, if you know what kind of work basically goes into making the thing, you'll generally be better equipped to talk about what got your attention, what seemed to go wrong, and what you think they were trying to do but either did or didn't pull off effectively.

So when I'm stumped, I go back to what I know about how movies are made based on the documentaries on filmmaking I've seen.

Some good examples are:

-Snowball Effect: the Story of Clerks (2004)
-The Lord of the Rings Special Extended Edition Appendices (2002-2004)
-Spotlight on Location: The Making of Jaws (2000)
-Any episode of Inside the Actors Studio

Writing.  Production, casting, performances, direction.  Editing, visual effects, music, sound design.  

Getting to know the general terminology of the industry I find is pretty helpful towards thinking of a movie as a means of telling a story which is built out of a large series of small decisions that can be considered and evaluated both one at a time and collectively.

Three Acts?

One thing I've had to just accept that I can write about whether I understand it or not is the three-act format of most hollywood screenplays.

Generally speaking, many if not most films seen in theaters before massive audiences will have a story that fits more or less the same pattern every time.  Think of it like a revision on those handy plot diagrams they made us draw in 9th grade English, which as I recall looked something like this:

image courtesy of the wikipedia

The basic idea is that the film's story is divided into three main parts, each ending with a climax of dramatic tension and followed by a short period of relatively low tension.

The first act is the set-up of the rest of the work: it ends when the characters are all known, the problem of the story is set up, and usually when a large challenge has been conquered or at least survived.  When things seemed to have calmed down for a moment and the story has turned a corner, that's the start of act two, and the tension starts rising again.

Consider second act to be the hollywood equivalent of Joseph Campbell's Road of Challenges in his famous Monomyth; it comes to a head after the characters have overcome a series of lesser problems following the first climax, and usually ends on a down note, when things seem to be as bad as they could possibly be for the heroes.

The third act is when the real fireworks come in: it begins where the second act ends, in the figurative belly of the whale: the difference is what happens to the characters when they're in the pit.  Usually it involves some transformation of character: either they recognize the shortcoming that's been holding them back, or decide to take ownership of an asset they've previously failed to recognize or wanted to downplay, or they finally come to a compromise of some kind with the force that's holding them back.  Often there's either a conversation between two characters who haven't talked much so far, or an introspective moment.  Something that indicates soul searching is going down.

Whatever the change is, they emerge from the most depressing part of the story ready to kick butt, and the rest of the movie is the final race to the solving of the story's main problem.  After the problem is solved, the "falling action" and "denoument" of modern film is extremely brief, usually just a ten to fifteen minute wrap-up or 'the adventure continues' wink to the audience, then the credits roll.

The nice thing about this structure is that, like the Monomyth I mentioned above, it can be nested inside itself; there can be multiple levels of three-act problem solving going on in the same film or even in the same act, if the writers are skilled enough at keeping different plates spinning and keeping the lines of communication to the audience clear and comprehendible.

Not all movies conform to this structure, in fact the good ones usually either ignore it or stand it on its head.

But some good examples to help you get the general idea are:

-Independence Day (divided even into separate days, with title cards, for convenience)
-The Matrix (classic Monomyth)
-The Avengers
-Groundhog Day
-The Princess Bride (complete with pit of despair)
-Finding Nemo
-The Dark Knight (acts within acts within acts within acts)
-Star Wars (IV) (Lucas expressed outright his gratitude to Joseph Campbell)
-Raiders of the Lost Ark
-V for Vendetta
-Jurassic Park
-Guardians of the Galaxy

(Some good or great movies that play with the structure or turn it on its head include Pulp Fiction, the Shawshank Redemption, the Godfather, Sin City, the Departed, and Se7en)
To what works is the film in question similar?  How does it compare?  Differ?

The history of cinema is a long and rich one, and I am hardly an expert.  A professor at my university referred to black-and-white movies as existing, to paraphrase, in an era before visual effects were a substitute for quality.

I've seen many black and white movies, mostly filmed with color wasn't an option or practical, and most of those I've seen have been around long enough because they are excellent, usually for their writing and acting.

But I haven't seen every movie that exists.  

And one very strange thing about an aging art form like cinema is, the people making the most famous works nowadays are influenced by three or four distinct generations of filmmakers that came before them, whether they know it or not.

So when I'm watching a movie for the first time, I know in advance that I will not pick up on the reasons why many decisions are made, and will not notice when this character or that paraphrased line of dialogue or a certain technical trick have been used before.

But there are always things which remind me of other movies, and things which I know I've never seen before and which remind me of nothing.  Both of these are worth taking note of, together with the reason why they catch my attention in the first place.

I find that these are most noteworthy when:

-They play against the expectations of the genre I'm watching;
-They enrich character in an unexpected way
-They transcend, or momentarily matter more than, the plot line/source of dramatic tension

Practice reviewing movies you especially like or especially dislike

Pop in the DVD, and when the parts that make you laugh or cry or say Hell Yeah come on, jot down what they were and why you did that.

Try to focus on the way that the movie does these things that other movies don't do them, you may have more to say than you'd expect (this usually as to do with either the writing or the acting, but other production aspects like soundtrack or maybe visual effects).  Avoid the word "perfect," instead give specific reasons why things complement each other, or are beneficially contrasted.

See if you can find ways they could have made the movie better, or at least differently, and whether the way they did things were the best.  If they couldn't be improved, say why that is.

The same goes for movies you might hate; it may not be necessary to re-watch these depending on the strength of your memory (I can remember things that turned me off or outraged me in movies years later, despite its not being useful information, again this may be some form of personality disorder or untapped superpower I'm not sure which), but if you can give clear and concise reasons as to why the movie sucked, take a stab at writing them out.

Read reviews from movies you especially like or especially dislike

Pay a visit to rottentomatoes.com or any other critical aggregate site (metacritic isn't bad, imdb varies by entry) and look up a movie you've always enjoyed.  See what the critics had to say about it.  Try to think of one from the last year, the last five years, the last ten years, and a few from your childhood/adolescence.

Most aggregate sites feature blurbs from the critics which then link to the full article on the critic's own website.  Read through the blurbs and see which ones jump out at you because you agree with what they say or disagree completely.  Then read those reviews, and pay attention to whether the writer comments on the things you liked or disliked about the film.

Do the same for films you hated.

Thoughts on form

I've noticed that many movie reviews, and most of the ones I've put together, follow a general pattern:

Introduction
       Tricky or trickiest part to get right; I try to explain either why I wanted to see the movie or what I think the movie was trying to be about, and a strong hint as to whether it's worth seeing.

Brief Synopsis
       Introduce main character, approximate setting, and chief problem.  Try and find an original way of putting the movie's conceptual hook where applicable.

Highlight Reel
       The strongest or overall strengths in a praising review, the worse or overall weakest points in a condemning one.

Other key Pros or Cons
       Anything that was either strong or better than just acceptable (without necessarily being exemplary, in case of a mediocre film, if extra comments are needed).  Anything that called other works to mind or can be favorably/unfavorably compared to other works.

Other technical commentary
       If the soundtrack, visual effects, camera work, or anything other than writing, acting, and directing were worth mentioning.

Cons among the Pros, or Pros among the Cons
       In a praising review, what they did wrong or could have done better.  In a condemnation, anything redeeming.  In a mediocre review, anything noteworthy for being baffling, out of place, or otherwise memorable.

Recommendation
       Whether or not it's worth seeing, maybe mention in what way (go see it in theaters, wait for DVD, etc.)

By no means is this the only way to write a review, and they don't each need their own paragraph or need to be limited to just one paragraph apiece.  I just generally try to hit all these points in order to make it seem comprehensive and well-rounded.
Other Points

Three other things to keep in mind while writing a review:

-How much the movie cost
-Who it's likely made for, the target audience
-Whether it's making money, especially with an international audience

None of these things need to be commented on in every or even any review, but they are worth keeping in mind because the motion picture industry is seen more and more each year as a financial heavyweight; bigger and bigger budgets, bigger and bigger expected returns.

When King Kong was made in 2005 by Peter Jackson, it was a world-record level of news because it cost more than $207 million, and was the most expensive movie ever made.  It grossed about $550 million worldwide, and was seen as a box-office disappointment if not a failure.  This record has since been surpassed by Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End (2007) at $300 million (note: this is NOT the figure for Pirates 2 & 3; that's #3 alone), and in general films cost more and more every year.

Since this time last year for example, there have been four movies released that cost $200 or more (The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug, Transformers 4, X-men Days of Future Past, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2) and nearly all the top-grossing films have cost $150 million or more, usually closer to the $170-190 million mark (notable exceptions from the top 10 grossing lists are the animated Rio 2 at about $96 million, and 99% animated Gravity at $100 million).

None of this, most of the time, is important for most of the reasons that movies are good or bad movies.

But they are worth keeping in mind for the kinds of movies you're likely to see in the future.

Production companies and the people who bankroll them have the most confidence in the things they've seen succeed in the past, and the things which are popular now.

So keep in mind:

Did they make this movie for: 
      boys, or 
      for girls, (or both); 
      is it for kids, 
      or grown-ups, (or both).  

It seems silly and stupid to pigeonhole good creative work in this way, but a surprising number of the people who decide which movies being made next year and the year after that are looking at the movies coming out this year with just this sort of categorizing in mind, and paying attention to whether movies with a certain audience succeed or fail, again more often than not by their lofty, blockbuster-or-get-out-standards.

More and more often as movies cost more to make and big returns are expected, you'll see movies tailored to hit as many of these four "compass points," and to hit them not only in the U.S., but in China, and Japan, and Europe, and in Russia.  This means more universally acceptable content, not necessarily dumbed down, but certainly less culture-specific (notice all those superhero movies lately?).

If they're going to spend $200 on a movie, they're going to want it to be a hit in more countries than just here.  And do it in 3D.

The reason I say to pay attention to this is it will, or may, help shed light on the reasons behind the decisions the movie makers have made.

In the end,

you're writing about whether you'd recommend this movie to your friend, and if so why.

Try to imagine your friend as someone who knows their stuff about movies, and make the best use of your time reading up and preparing your thoughts before you have that conversation.  

Then have that conversation, but in print, and make it as short, colorful, and direct as you can.

Further Reading

Everyone has their own voice to find in writing.  The only way to find yours when it comes to film reviews is to read as many as you can and to write your thoughts about movies down as much as you can.  If you want a good place to start, I recommend some of the following.

In the spring of 2013, Roger Ebert passed away, and I was suddenly more interested in his writing than I had been before (sad but true).  In general he was one of the critics who either agreed with my thoughts on a movie (along with James Berardinelli) or who disagreed in such a way that I could understand what he was talking about.

I got hold of some of his books out of curiosity, specifically his The Great Films volumes 1 and 2, and reading his essays in those books was what really started my brain firing in terms of essays being something a person would want to write, even when a teacher wasn't forcing them to.  I recommend finding one or both of these at the library, and reading the essays for the films you've seen that he lists at least once (I read each twice, but not consecutively), and maybe watching some of the ones he lists that you haven't seen.

With an eye to which movie is making how much money, and how it compares to others of its kind, bookmark boxofficemojo.com for day-by-day analysis of the ticket receipts for thousands of films, as well as breakdowns of US and foreign markets.

The quality has fallen off somewhat of late, but I also keep a regular eye on the Weekly Ketchup article on Rotten Tomatoes, just to have in mind what's brewing in the movie world and what may be coming out in a year or two.

Finally, a recommendation made with a grain of salt: there is a wiki you can look up called tv tropes and idioms, which is basically a mixture of overzealous fanboy analysis and key storytelling insights on crack, in wiki form, so endless linking and clicking is a real peril.  I recommend visiting any given article for a film 1. after you've seen it, obviously, but also 2. after you've written about it, to see if there are any obvious insights you may have missed to keep in mind for next time.

I just noticed the title of this article makes use of the word "brief," so that's it for now.  Thanks for reading, please ask any questions or voice any disagreements in the comments below!