BandCalledCatch 0:00

♫ Whoa is me, woe is me. They have seen what I've seen. Yes. My mamma didn't let them make change on me. Put change on me. Yeah, whoa is me, woe is me. This is the product of A.D.D. Apothecary, not for me, I dream naturally. Yeah, woe is me. Woe is me. They have seen what I've seen. ♫

Jonathan 0:21

Greetings and or salutations. And welcome back to Imbibe Cinema. I'm your host, Jonathan C. Legat. I'm a alongside Michael Noens and Tricia Legat. Uh , in this episode we're going to be discussing Ophelia , which is , uh , currently available on digital download as well as rental. While we imbibe The Drowning In Phel— The Drowning In Phileo... "The Drowning Ophelia." That's really sad when you're already starting to screw up the name of everything , um , drink. Yes , yes it is . It's potent. It's vodka. So , uh, it is found in a book which is Shakespeare, not stirred cocktails for your everyday dramas. Uh , we found this drink , uh , it has flowers floating just like Ophelia . It is very apropos. So , um, imbibe cinema podcast is brought to you by the blue whiskey independent film festival, otherwise known as boys . Uh, the festival seeks independent character driven films of all lengths, styles and genres.

Speaker 1 1:22

So to learn more, visit us at [inaudible] dot com once again, that is BWI f f.com. Um, ask for the film. I felt this was a great independent film and, and I know Tricia was very excited about this one . Um, uh , this particular one and two to quote the complete works of William Shakespeare bridged . I love my Willie . Um, uh , but specifically from, from the first shot of this film, which is right out of the surge , John Everett [inaudible] , uh , painting. You could tell that Claire McCarthy who the director of this film was also extremely excited about bringing this particular film to the screen. Yeah, absolutely. I did see Hollywood reporter did a , uh , a little interview , um , with a cast. Well, members of the casting crew and Claire McCarthy was there , um , along with the Tom Felton layer to yeah. Yes. And um , right. By the way, I was watching this, I was like, man, he looks really familiar. He's not wearing green and he's not a complete Dick. Wow. He's not in slithering right now. Okay , that makes sense. It was only until like earlier today. I was like, that's where I knew . Anyway, that's how good an actor he is. Yes, there you go. Like you could be the most , one of the most famous hated characters all the time and you're like, I just can't put my finger on it. Naomi Watts was specifically talking about how Claire McCarthy would put daisy in, in Naomi in a room and have them do like a bunch of rehearsal. Naomi even made a comment about how she was like a , brought me back to my , uh, my , uh, high school theater days like that lucky, you know, theater , um, uh, and practice

Speaker 3 3:00

this. But she said, you know, it's set up such a great connection, a great bonding opportunity for the two of them. And I , I totally agree. I mean, they , they clearly had a great, a great time on this film at 1000% degree . Uh, you know, especially Naomi Watts plays two characters, absolutely riveting performance by her. Um, and while this is, you know, we're , we're going to be discussing the , the story much later, but the material, this was not as dark to a degree as like hamlet is right on who's putting it up and how they're presenting it. That's trace a lot like the , like Shakespeare, like the Bible has a lot of room for interpretation. People will see one thing and they'll focus on that and they'll ignore other things that you can see a presentation of any of his plays and they can translate differently depending on who's doing it , um , within a time period. Right. Um, so when it comes to this, and it's one of my all time favorite , uh, plays of , you know, just , uh, I mean, yes, my mother did read to us hamlet as a smell children because she thought the pokey little puppy was redundant. I don't know. She had problems with the small, with , with children's literature. Oh yeah. She , and then she did , she produced three , uh , artistic , um, creative types who had a avoidance to careers with health insurance. And it really is, I love you mom. But she would read hamlet to us when we were little. When it comes to the cast. I, one of the reasons I love , uh , daisy Ridley in this is she has , uh , this great way of being, presenting herself, being very strong and very vulnerable at the same time. Yes, I've been in love with Naomi since King Kong, King Kong watching. I mean, and it's sad because I don't remember the name of the character and I think everybody always, nobody does. I think everybody just calls it the fe ray character because Faye Ray played and it was so right . So nowhere they, nobody bothered to know the characters name. But in watching her do that where she's just acting with a green screen and just to bring so much humor and humanity in when she's all by herself and have a relationship with nothing. I mean very few actors I think are capable of doing that or a at doing it as eloquently as her or you know, Tom hangs with a volleyball. Um, and I will say there is a reverse ageism I find that is applied to hamlet in any motion picture. And let me just pull up my data on this cause I was curious if I was correct, if I was just like being prejudice whenever they release a major motion picture data. Yeah . So here's my, here's my , uh, my , my, my data for you all. Uh , so , uh , 1948 pain to a production of hamlet on film that Sir Lawrence Olivier, who was 41 years old at the time playing hamlet. Then Mel Gibson plays. Yeah, Mil Kempson plays him in 1990. He's 34. So a young ENT like Kenny the Brennan Plays Hamlet . Yeah. Ken The front of plays hamlet at 36. Ethan Hawke plays him in 2000 at 30. And then David Tennant who I love and is such a damn good actor, plays him at 38. And I'm sorry, hamlet is not in his thirties. You don't even, Juliet were in their teens and we make a big deal of casting young for that. Right? So why in God's name is Hamlin a middle aged man. He's never have . We're a middle aged man. And so this is the first time we see somebody under 30 because George is 27. Okay. [inaudible] baby face. So even if he was over 30, I'd give it to them on the fact that he looks, he looks the part nobody else did. Now here's, here's one theory that on that, and specifically I know it's , you know, floating some of these, these actors egos a little bit, but I think that there is a certain amount of chops that, that an actor must have to play hamlet in hamlet. Whereas I was blown away by George Mackay's performance in this, but he's not doing Hamlet's monologues. He's not doing hamlet , Soliloquy, Z's not performing as hamlet. This is, this is a story about a failure . This is hamlet as a supporting role. Yeah, exactly. But then it shows off a lot of, I mean there's, because when you play hamlet, there's so much to cover, right? You've got the fact that he's trying to decide what to do. Uh , his relationship with his mother is a big problem. His relationship with his uncle is a big problem. Uh , it , we've got Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for comic relief. I mean there's just, there's a lot going on in Ofelia is just one side note and what's going on. Right? Because in this you get to see how much hamlet really does love Ophelia and it is, it's in the original text, but there's just so much text, hey, say this whole , like the longest play , uh , that Shakespeare wrote, and I could be wrong, I really didn't check this, but he's one of, if not one of the longest plays that he's ever , uh , that he wrote and it , uh, with the shortest plot, it basically nothing happens. Yup . And it could be spiritual Seinfeld. There's, it's, it's , we're just sitting around talking about nothing really. It's just not true. He is, nothing happens. He taught, he talks a lot of action in , in , in the play. He talks a lot of action but does nothing. Right. So it's really interesting to have him as a supporting character because he actually does a lot more when he's not the center of the focus. Right. And I think every, every character in here, to a degree, I would even say Clive Owen's character, not necessarily Clive Owen, but cla ,

Speaker 1 8:56

ply bones , character of Claudia's. There was hints of comedy as well as the hints as well as the weight of things lighter . Yeah, there was, there were lighter moments too , to cloudy human beings in order to really be afraid of somebody, you kind of have to be able to laugh at some point or be able to , uh, feel for them on some level. You have to be some humanity to really fear them. I think some of the greatest villains are the scariest people like John Lithgow. Terrifying, but adorable at the same time. It's true. He can do both. Yes. David Tennant , yes . Also very scary. Although, so we've kind of hit a lot on , uh , on the actors specifically, but I kind of want to bring, you know, turn this a little bit onto the, the crew . So like specifically , uh, Claire McCarthy , uh, she actually did win a , a directors to watch from the Paulden Springs International Film Festival for this film. What I found really fascinating when it comes to like the crew compliment , um, is that , um, her and , uh, Denson, Baker , uh , who's the cinematographer, this was actually their fifth project together. Uh , and they actually have two that are in either pre or post production right now. Oh Wow. That they have kind of found a , you know, this, this cohesive , uh, you know, meld between the two of them and they work together on everything. And I'm not gonna lie the , the cinematography, the, the , uh, the amount of symbolism, which we'll also get to when we get to the story, but like, they did such a great job of telling the story through their shots, through the , everything in the background. It was just as stunning as everything that was going on, on the photograph . Specifically kind of , uh, to comment on the, the moment when Ophelia is told that hamlet has been killed by a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and she has like that breakdown in uh , like , uh , she goes into like the, it's like a tree, like a almost like a willow and I , she kinda has a breakdown there but like the , the, the break of shots that you show like time going by into the evening before she ends up on the top of paragons . Yeah, that whole, there's like this one shot , um, that's like at, it looks like sunset. Um, she's just standing in the middle of a field , this foggy field, very ghostly and it's all just carried through with like with a , with the score to that moment. And we, we bring up the score in this. Now granted, I will actually here , let me, let, let me go to the cinematography moment that I found absolutely fascinating. And I know Trisha and I had discussed this previously, but the, the point where she has drowned herself, there is this beautiful shot where the, the, the screen is essentially flipped upside down where she is floating in it face up in the water, but she is down on the , on

Speaker 3 11:54

the screen and it's just such a , this beautiful mirror kind of thing going on. And just what an amazing shot that was. Uh , two to really drive home. What's the weight of everything that's going on? And uh , the opening shot where you sh you show her , uh , laying in the water and then listening, same thing. And then she sings , uh , the, the bed where she's laying there and on one hand she's grasping onto a bouquet of flowers. And I think to myself, what drowning? Wouldn't it be like just floating away? Why are you grabbing like the death grip around these flowers is intense, but then we know there's somebody symbolism about Ophelia in the flowers. And so, but that shot with her holding those flowers so tightly , uh , stuck in my head. So then later when we, when she's drowning and she's grasping so tightly onto that bottle of nightshade , uh, which you know, is flour and poisoned , uh, then it's like, oh my God, those are the flowers. That's it. That's why we regret that. And visually I'm seeing it just through the cinematography they're showing me it's the same thing. Yeah. And I love that. Uh, one of the things that got me a cinematography wise was the use of the pillars in the court. Uh, and the fact that in her, in the first scene we see, of course she's a child and she's walking on the outside of the pillars. Uh , and accord is within those pillars. She's walking on the outside, cause she's an outsider. She's not part of the court. And , uh , her brother's telling her to get out of there and she kind of runs in between the pillars and stinks under a table so she can see better. So now all of a sudden she's inside court. Uh, and then the last shot of her in court is her and , uh , hamlet parting ways. And he is on the inside of the pillars. And she's on the outside and they walk parallel as they walk the length of court and she's leaving and he's going to face his death. And the fact that they're just walking next to each other but not but not. And she's on the outside and he's on the end and it's just like, oh it's so beautifully shot. I love that. Beautifully shot. Beautifully directed that, I mean that there is so much attention to that detail. There's so much. I know I missed cause I only got to see it one time and I'm like, oh I'm, I took ridiculous amount of notes and John made fun of me trying to pause. I will . And that's the funny thing too that you mentioned that because I rented this on apple and so I saw it on Thursday night. I think you guys did too . Yup . Saturday morning I had like four hours left. Um, as I like pulled it up on my apple TV and I was like, okay , I'm going to , I'm going to watch it again and take more notes. I actually did write a lot of notes the first time, but after I watched the movie pretty much I was like furiously writing and I'm trying to also make sense of like these one word things that I wrote down. Raz , I was watching it and so the, what I thought was so great was when I did sit down to take more notes, I made no notes. I just ended up watching a movie again. That's exactly what happened

Speaker 1 14:52

to me. I did watch it a second time and I was just wrapped. Yeah, I mean it's a movie you could watch, which is interesting because I don't know if I would say the same thing about any a film adaptation of Hamlet. Yes. But I would watch it twice within 48 hours. This I would watch over and over again because I know that there's, it's like, you know, a beautiful lead , delicious onion and there's just so many layers. Yeah. And as your one per phase are probably a better piece of delicious. Yes . But no, it is interesting that the second time there were a lot more things that I was picking up on specifically in the one that the Tricia pointed out immediately after the, the , the movie finished, she went and grabbed the , uh, the Shakespeare hamlet off off the shelf and it was feverish , feverish Lee opening the book and she opened it amazingly enough and scarily enough to the page she was thinking but then kept thinking second guessing and turning to more pages. But uh, there is a , a speech specific , let me pull it up for you. Oh, it's right here. It's one of my favorite speeches of Polonius is uh , which is the a tis match . His pity to spit each is true to his man . He was like, stay a wild man. Stay awhile . I will be faithful. I'm going to be brief about this, but I'm going to talking to the five minutes. I love, I love how uh, Polonius talks. Yeah. He winds me up. And uh, I had actually learned this speech a long time ago for speech team. No, just cause it was my , for something doubt that the stars are fire doubt, the sun doth move, doubt, truth to be a liar, but never doubt. I love what a fantastic transition to Stephen prices . Awesome score. Yes, exactly. And so that , that was exactly what Trisha thought it was only in the very end of the movie, but the second time I watched it because she found that quote and read it aloud to me while we were , you know , continuing to imbibe other alcohol. The second time I watched it, that is actually echoed throughout all of the key moments. It's either in a whisper when right when she's about to take her own life , uh , with the night shade. It's being whispered that particular sentence as being whispered. And then again, as , as hamlet is going on, you know, walking towards his death and she is walking out of the court that is actually being sung. And so the score to this was just dripping with, with amazingness. Uh, and yeah, Steven Steven Price just a little bit on him. Um, cause I've, I've uh , loved his , uh, his music baby driver. I mean, obviously you have to mention , uh, his score for gravity , um, which he, I believe he won , um , the Oscar for as well. I have like a three d score to go with the fact that the movie was 3d and constantly like that spinning , um, feel in the music. I mean, it , it's, it's remarkable. And then he, if you guys have watched our planet on Netflix, Yep . Incredible score, that's him.

Speaker 3 17:50

Um, and going into this, I mean, it's very different, very, very different than, than stuff I've heard of him his before. But it does make me question, especially like the use of that in, in the score. I wonder , did that originate with Claire McCarthy or did data originate in him? Or was that something that I was born between, you know, like a conversation between the two of them because it's, it like a , the way that I felt about it afterwards, which is, you know, Apropos those lyrics hunt the movie. Oh God, they feel like a haunting of , of over the entire story, which I think is perfect. And it's like, it's brilliant. Right ? And those, I mean, that is , uh, that is Hamlet's love letter that Maloney's is reading to Ophelia that affiliated surrendered to her father and he, he's reading back to the Queen , uh, to , uh, show how hamlet is crazy, but he's crazy in love. One of the reasons, and mind you, I had gone on this weird tangent about how I love hamlet and it's the longest play about nothing. And my mom read it to me, but reason I love hamlet of all of Shakespeare's plays. I don't think I actually got to the point, you know, they laugh cause it's common is a , the fact that I love that every character in this is motivated by love or a version , either a twisted version of love. Uh, but I mean obviously hamlet loves his father. Oh, Ophelia loves her father. Hamlet loves his mother. Claudius loves his mother to uh, Eh, well, I mean, and even her ratio, it's a friend that's a platonic love. That's all. We love her now . She wanted to talk about her ratio. Thank you. I was about to say that because when you had made the comment John, about how, you know, like every cast member they showed up and brought their, their a plus plus game. Um, they, they clearly were loving everything that they were doing. I mean, down to your, your smallest characters. I felt like the rose bully turned the guard, like fully, fully developed. Obviously, you know, there's source material, but I mean fully developed in the short amount of time that we get to know them. And I mean Horatio does have actually quite a bit of screen time , but I like loved a , what does a Devon , Devon Terrell , yeah, his, her ratio. Fantastic. Yeah. In the second time that I saw it, I didn't get to see him in the end, in the background. I was taking notes at that time. He looks over and I'm like , I'm writing for her ratios . Right. I mean, first time I actually cared about her ratio, the , the thing. And again, in, in, once we come back from our break, we'll really discuss kind of the, the , the story , uh , and, and you know , where it differs from the, the, the source material, if you will. But it was heartbreaking to see Horatio just get

Speaker 1 20:48

beaten in the background as opposed to like, you know, having his, his moment in the sun. It's just literally like the whole point of the ratio character. The only last person that , that I would like to bring up is a Massimo , uh, Contini Perrine , uh , who is the , uh, the , the costume designer. Oh , he did? Uh , it's , uh, Masimo Contini Bahraini it's an awesome, it is just so fun to say. The, the, the costumes in this were absolutely amazing and , and Masimo did , uh , like the brothers Grimm or , uh , talk of tails , uh, costume designs as well. And, and, and both of those kind of had this, this element of modern ask, but at the same time really hitting period piece, if you will. Um, and , uh, especially like the , the ballroom scene where it's the masquerade ball and just everything that he did, it was, it was absolutely fantastic seeing that costume design specifically. I don't find myself noticing the costume design in like a particular moment , um, in, in my first watch. But , um, the , the moment where they're standing in front of the tapestry and you know, a ham hamlet walks up and you know, walks over and you know, Ophelia and him are having this, this back and forth, that moment when we , we moved back and we see the whole group. What I love is that there's like a , a , like this gold that's in the costume for literally everybody except for a few . Really ? Yeah. And it , it makes your eye go immediately to her. The fact that she's so muted in that shot start contrast. That's good. Costume does . I realized, I was like, wait a minute. Everybody's got a little gold to them. Uh , you know what? We're going to take a a half minute here. My glass is empty. And so we're going to fill up these glasses and imbibe a little bit more. After this.

Speaker 3 22:35

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Speaker 1 23:09

you're listening to imbibe cinema. Once again, I am Jonathan c Leggett and I am here with Michael knowns and Trisha like it . Uh , and we have been discussing a , the film Ofelia . Uh , do you like listening to our dulcet tones? Please subscribe to get new episodes as soon as they become available, right and or leave us a review to help our show reach that larger audience. And you can also follow imbibe cinema on Facebook and, or the twitters. I really think that what we needed to discuss now , um, is, is, is the script at large the adaptation of the novel by Lisa Klein. Um, and , and where it differs from the Bard's , uh, original work where it's similar , uh, and just the script and all of the symbolism. It's reaping its symbolism , uh, and, and everything that we've, you know, tried to discuss, but, but, but I reigned you in so I apologize. So free for all Trish go. Okay.

Speaker 3 24:06

So I've usually just seen very similar versions of hamlet . I mean, yes, you can make it present day like Ethan Hawke did or well just keep getting older hamlets, right .

Speaker 1 24:18

He's a nine p this young girl in Ireland, no testament to their acting rates . Not to me. Clearly. I'm going to be dead tomorrow. Oh, I thought I was looking at them cause your excursion is mine. Yeah, sorry. Wow. We really got the different take .

Speaker 3 24:40

Obviously the main story that everyone sees is a , is a good story. It's a great story. Uh, however , uh, as a many Shakespeare nerds pointed out is , um, uh, there are so many nods or hints in the text to the fact that Ophelia is pregnant and is , or she is. Yeah. And there are just so many that like if you just in the first , uh , or early on in the, in the show or the film, if you would , uh , just had her hold her stomach for a second, all of a sudden, all of those hints would probably become very noticed by the audience. Just Wen with a visual cue. All those little jokes about , uh, conceiving [inaudible] will suddenly be like, oh, wait a minute. And in her , um, drowning sequence when she , uh , is drowning, they talk about the cloud, they talk about the flowers that she's holding and one of them , uh, being , uh , dead man's fingers , uh, and , uh, they are called Edmond's fingers. They look more like , um , Phallic e I would say members male . Uh, yeah, like , yeah, they look like penises and so can say that on the podcast. But also , uh , the , she has Daisy's unhappy love as a , his representative. So unhappy, love and all that. But more importantly , uh, if we get to affiliate speech about flowers. So I'm just going to jump in here. Okay. So we got barred versus a book or in this case film [inaudible] for you in columbines . Okay. And those are directed to Gertrude. Those are symbols of adultery. So she's calling out the fact that she knows you are . Whoa . Yay. Oh, show. Exactly. Clark , go ahead. There's room for you. And here's something for me. Yeah . This is the most important. Flour in my mind. Ru symbolizes regret. And she's directing this toward Claudius and she's saying, you know, I hear some kill your brother. You pretty much, you're going to regret all the zones . Uh , and some for me, it's the only thing that she says about herself is she has a lot of regret. You would think, however ru is also used , uh , as a poison , uh, to help induce miscarriages at that time. So , uh, it could, if you took too much, it could kill you, but it's not something that you would use to kill yourself. It's a terrible way to die. Most people would use hemlock or nightshade , something like that. So the fact that she's mentioning Rue , which is specifically something you would use to kill off an unborn child. And some for me, there's that double meaning. So it's another way of going. Look, I'm pregnant eyes .

Speaker 1 27:19

She immediately follows it with saying, we may call it herb of grace. Oh Sundays. That's really sad. Then , uh , especially if she knows that she's taking it to , to do that. Oh you must wear your room with deference. Right ? So she's saying, yeah, but you're wearing yours for a different reason than mine. Yeah. Alright , go ahead. There's a daisy. Yeah, daisy as another symbol of unhappy love. I would give you some violence , but they all withered when my father died.

Speaker 3 27:50

Now this is another one that I think is interesting is cause a violence are supposed to symbolize faithfulness. And the fact that you know, maybe the only faithful person, a loyal person that she considered in court cause layer t's isn't there at that time is her father. And so there's nobody that she can trust. And the fact that Hamill's the one who killed her father spoiler. So the fact that that happened, then we , we've broken a trust obviously. Uh , so the fact that she might feel all alone and , uh , that there's no one she can trust,

Speaker 1 28:18

they took it almost completely aligned for line in this film. There , there was some movement, if you will, because of the undertones that they were trying to set. Whether this is the novel itself or the adaptation I'm judging, it's kind of a little bit of both as well as just Claire's directing, getting the subtext of all of the conversations. And it was one of the things that was absolutely beautiful to watch , uh, between hamlet and Ophelia is when they're communicating with each other. We've seen scenes where he jokes about her being a fish, cause she's in, you know, in the pond alone. Uh , you know, now she's clothed, but at the same time he's like, hey, come on, come on a , you know, up on the shore. And , uh, and you know, he talks about her being efficient. Then later he literally goes up to Polonius in like, Yo, he's , she , he's trying to sell me a fish. And there's a whole speech in the actual play of hamlet where, where Polonius is going. Like, I am not a fishmonger, you know, but to us it makes more sense because we saw a scene that is not in the play of her being in this water. And so there's all these, these beautiful things where, where they take the, the, the rich text of the Bard, but they never actually go full hamlet . They don't go full Shakespeare. They don't use all the texts , uh , except in the, in the , the , uh, the composer and the score. But at the same time, they lace in all these beautiful elements that if you know the, the text right here, you're able to, if you're in ,

Speaker 3 29:54

you're a nerd and you're geeking out about it. And I know, I know during the break I talked about how I compare this in a way to , uh , what lies beneath , uh , which is a film that God was , it's a meccas that did that and it was an homage to Hitchcock. So if you love Hitchcock movies, you're going, oh my God, oh wait, that's, that's a from notorious and that's, that's from a rear window. And that's, that's from a , you know , uh , vertigo and right. There's a, there's a little bit of everything laced in and in this, there are not only , uh, nods to the text without being overt that if you know it, you're like, oh, I get where you're going . Or , uh, if, you know, Shakespeare , uh , in general, he loves to do the whole like, oh, you dead. No , I know dead. Oh wait, we're all really dead kind of thing. And he loves to play with poison. It's, it's done in other , uh, uh , place . So I , I love that there is, there is a love of Shakespeare and that we've just broadened our horizons a bit and we've gone a little out of the box on that. And then one of the things I love is they assigned Claudia's the lines that are, hey, can I sum this all up in one line? And that's true . And , uh , so after the sword fight in the courtyard , uh , between hamlet and Claudius, there is , uh , uh, this great line. Claudia's has as he's , you know, defeated a hamlet. He says, you debate what to do next and meanwhile you do next to nothing. And I'm like, Yep , that's the play. That's it. Yeah . You just ,

Speaker 1 31:18

you do make what to do the entire time that the play is going on , but you don't actually do anything. Right. And it's like, that's , Claudius is burn . You waited five hours to kill me. Lazy millennial. I don't know what else . Well, no, I don't know what that we just gen x did. We did. And I'm so sorry because I was born with that teen 80

Speaker 3 31:44

young ins . All right , so another line that Claudius has is he says a , the better man does not always win.

Speaker 1 31:50

Yes. And that's true. Those of you who do know a hamlet and even those who, who don't, the , the way that this kind of just interweaves scenes that are offstage really for the play itself, by interweaving them in , by how they're designed. You could actively, and I did, I actively watched this film and went, yeah, I , I buy that. This is all just stuff that couldn't go into the five hour play know , making this an eight hour play, you know, would , would , would be a way of getting all of this incorporated and it all makes sense. Well written to that

Speaker 3 32:31

point of view, right? Uh , [inaudible] has a different point of view what's going on in Ophelia and it's , it's like all those , uh, uh, one of the, one of the stories I see types of stories I really love is when you take a different point of view on something that everybody kind of accepts as normal. So if you are hearing the wicked stepmother's point of view instead of Cinderella, all of a sudden it's like, oh, this is the same story. This is a completely different story. Yeah. Maleficent would be a very recent example. Uh , so now symbolism is where I get all super gaped out. I'll hit two to three big things that I liked. One, obviously flowers, not just the symbolism behind the meaning of every flower, but the fact that the all the other ladies in waiting, they all have jewels and she has flowers and it's a status thing. The flowers kind of end up being used all over the place, whether they're in Gertrude's bath or they're being used to make , uh , remedies or poisons by the healer. Uh , and then there are two big things, one of one central. I think if you're going to go with the biggest amount of symbolism or foreshadowing in , uh , in this film, it's gotta be around knowledge and they hit knowledge so many different ways. We start with Philios first time in court. Uh, they've , they're talking about Adam and eve and , uh, and uh, cause , uh, Ham was going to college, right? And so they're , they're talking about a , the , the sin of knowledge and a Ophelia pipes up and says the, I think she thinks the apple is quite innocent in the whole affair. Uh, and I , I love that. Uh, and then it's used again. There's a, there's a snake when she is , uh, going to the witch slash healer and the murderer of the king is leaving. She is hiding and she doesn't see who it is, but she sees the murderer leave. And as they're crossing in front of her, there's a black snake that crosses in front of her feet. I think knowledge pretty much represents danger , uh, because we see it over and over again with the Adam and Eve story with Ophelia not permitted to read. And yet she , uh , layer cheese teaches her anyway and uh, how she witnesses Gertrude and Claudia skating it on and the burden of that knowledge that a hamlet school takes him away from her. And that in turn kind of puts their love in danger. If you were to go there, the witches , a knowledge of poison and remedy causes a whole bunch of issues. I , hamlet refers to a sharp point within when he's talking to Claudius about how God says a , a sword to his throat, and he goes, well , my sharp point lies within. It's like my, my brain is where I can really hurt you. My smarts hurt Shrewd Warren's affiliate not to look , uh, at the witch's face when she goes there and she does it anyway. Uh, that one . Yeah,

Speaker 1 35:17

that's, that's, that's just dollars . Like go, go, go get me some more tonic. But, but definitely don't look at the twin me .

Speaker 3 35:26

Right. So madness. Let's talk madness.

Speaker 1 35:30

This is one of those areas where, especially when it comes to affiliate and, and the text of the Bard , there so many interpretations that can happen. Right ? You can have it where , uh , she is mad. She isn't mad. She's mad because she's with child. She's mad just cause it's a Tuesday.

Speaker 3 35:50

Yeah. And there's a , the foils , uh , thought that layer tease is a foil for hamlet , right. Because Hamlet's father is murdered and how he seeks to , uh , um , come to closure and then a layer [inaudible] same thing happens in how he approaches it. But , uh , the madness parallel is, is really between hamlet and Ophelia . Does hamlet pretend to go mad so that he can figure everything out and take his time? Uh, or , uh, does he really go mad? And it's, it's part of why he's stalling is he's just lost his mind. Yeah . Uh, and Ophelia , did she go mad because the man that she loved when, you know, kind of portrayed her, killed her father, and , uh, she's , uh , got nowhere to go. She's pregnant. All kinds of craziness. No Pun intended. Or does she fake madness because she sees what hamlet did. He's mad, I'll go mad. And that way I can get away with, you know, maybe nobody knowing. Yeah. And I'm breaking

Speaker 1 36:48

that specifically is one of the things that I found so rich of a, about this film. Neither of them has gone mad. They're using again, like I had mentioned previously, those scenes that we don't see in hamlet, the play to communicate with each other in a way that they say things that the other understands to , to be, you know, rich bonus subtext. But at the same time, we now being the audience are able to go, oh, okay. They're communicating in a sense of code in the play itself. And in this film, there is a scene where a Claudius , uh , and Polonius use Ophelia as bait to try to understand is hamlet actually crazy or you know, is it a ruse? And , and they did a very good job of having this subtext. They were whispering to each other yeah. Under their breath, what, you know, the , the actual text as opposed to those moments when they would then yell out the subtext that makes them seem crazy.

Speaker 3 37:59

Well , Ophelia is such an amazing character. She says , just strong character. And I think people kind of get giddy about the mad scene . They're like, well , you got to go mad. And that becomes the focus. Or maybe it's the focus , uh, for all kinds of reasons. But I think one of the strongest, one of the best, most challenging scenes is this scene where Ophelia has to be , uh, in front of the man she loves and pretty much be tried to ask, try to ask him like, what's going on without coming across the fact that she am totally breaking . I'm draining you right now by having your listen and there's so much going on. The scene is usually so traumatic to watch because it's heartbreaking and yet a in this I love madness is their secret code. I, I , we , we think , uh , having seen it, I was like, I wish, you know , uh, we'd seen more of it being a secret code that's yelled out loud where we're , the audience can be like, Oh I know what you mean. Yeah .

Speaker 1 38:48

That one is trying to pass a lot of information. She is imparting the knowledge that Claudius killed Hamlet's father. She has proof. She just got that proof. Uh, and , and , and so she's having to tell him that dude, your uncle is kind of in a hole and killed your father. Uh , I have all the proof. And so there , like I said, there is a lot of information that has to get passed between the two of them. And I , I might have to take a third pass at it.

Speaker 3 39:17

No, I want to see it again. Like , cause that was one of the things that I was like, Oh, I love that madness is a secret code and that it's not just in that scene. It's in the , the, when the players come to do the play to, you know, catch the conscience of the king. Right. So that they do that , uh , and there , and then it's not limited to just hamlets official madness scenes, but uh , affiliates as well as the fact that when she goes mad and , uh , in front of Claudius and Gertrude and layered , Jeez . Uh , with the flowers and a , she pretends to go mad in front of them to escape in this version. When she does this, she's hinting to her ratio in code the whole time.

Speaker 1 39:54

Yeah. Dig me up. I'm going to be dead . Yeah. Not so much code that, you know, please dig me up. Dig me up. Actually tonight. Can you make sure before I am cold, before I am caught 10 nights . You get me, I'm not nudge wink. Yeah. This is really important. Got It. Two at a time . Yeah, no , fuck me on this. Yeah . But , but again, I also like that now granted it , it's a nod to a completely nother Shakespeare Shakespearian play. There is the, the pretty much , uh , Juliet, Ian , you know , uh , ruse where, where she takes a poison that mimics death but mocks it well, and they both think the other one's dead. Just like Romeo and Juliet. Only hamlet has this opportunity to walk away and can't Yup. Chooses not to, I choose to say , can't teach . He chooses not to. And that in, in my , uh, in my view was the moment where I'm like this whole vengeance. I mean, that's the poison. Yeah. Right. Um , and, but he can't, he can't, he's already taken it. He can't walk away from it. And when she says, I think she just says goodbye to my love. Yeah. Like that's, that's her. I tried, I'm leaving goodbye. And then her departure from the madness. Yeah. And so to talk about the, again, differences between the Bard and , and the movie that Gertrude, yes. Yes. Actually the one who slays Claudius. Oh yeah . Where in the play we're all at, you know, o o Hamlet, you know, after taking the poison to the arm, realizes what's going on, the queen drinks a poison and then all of a sudden him in a, you know , finally violent rage. He goes, Oh, I know I've spent five acts kind of just dicking around here, but now I'm finally going to become a man of action. No , I like the fact that throughout this hamlet still is not the man of action. He's just jousting or jousting . He's , he's, he's doing combat with layer tees because he's been challenged to call. Yeah, he's been challenged and he's got an extra thing. But that Gertrude is actually the one who's like, oh my fucking Christ you, you slayed my husband. You, you killed my son. Fuck this. You're done. And then afterwards she's like, yeah, there's just nothing left. And then drinks poison. Right. And then when you see like the layout, if you were to come upon the scene later. Yes, exactly. CSI people that show up. If you're the Norwegians coming to this and the mass murder and you're like, oh, well it's Hamlin sword in Claudia. So obviously he killed [inaudible] . He's the one who did it and they're the ones who perpetuate this story. She must've drank poisoned by me . Like they could draw their own conclusions. Hence where the story , the, the, the play story comes from. And the reason that Ophelia story, it's like you think you know my story, but you don't actually know my story. Her opening line. And it was high time that I should tell you my story myself. This is right after, you know, she sinks, you know, into the, into the water and you know, the title is revealed. I mean, I was hooked between the music, between, you know, the script, the visuals, everything. I was like, OK , yeah, I'm, I , you got me. What I loved about this moment was I was like, you know, we always, to me, I always look at hamlet as, Oh yeah, hamlet is, you know, the Shakespearian tale . What I loved about this introduction was this happened and Shakespeare did his interpretation of it. But that's not what happened. Yeah. I'm going to tell you what really happened because she even refers to it as myth. Yes . Specifically because her issue is being beaten to a pulp in the background. Like we, we don't have really anyone left alive , uh, at the end of that movie to tell any story other than what, as Trisha pointed out, a CSI person would be like, yeah, this is how it went down. And that's the story that the Shakespeare writes. You know, how many versions of hamlet have I seen? Two too many, maybe , maybe. But I've never gotten emotionally attached to ratio. He's always been like, oh, you're just with the band. He's just that guy that had talks to on occasions so the audience can hear what Ann was thinking. He's just the guy that's like, well, is he more than just, you know, just, I mean, really, there's, there's not much to her ratio that I've seen portrayed before. He's always been referred to as this true friend. And I was like, yeah, okay . And here in this film, he is, he's everybody's

Speaker 3 44:32

true friend. He's a brave, loyal , uh, amazing guy that , uh , both Ophelia and hamlet lean on to , uh , help them get through it. And Oh my God, I love the way they portray him and I love the way that layer cheeses portrayed in this film as well. Then he , you have that relationship between brother and sister. Uh , and it's simple. It just in using him, teaching her to read, you've created this whole relationship that is really touching. So in the band instead of like a groupie or like a backup singer, he's like the drummer . He's like keeping beat. Yeah. He's Ringo. Two more things that I'd like to say. One, I find it interesting, the , uh , the use of fathers in the film , uh, the fact that we get , uh , the king alive for more than any other version. Yeah. Actually, the second time this , the one time I paused it , I was like, wait a minute, you just died and it's what? It's over a half hour into the movie. And I was like, wow. Right . But he's like window dressing and Polonius they hit on when a Polonius is like, you know, his big, to thine own self be true speech, they hit on that. But other than that, he's background. So the king doesn't get a voice really at all. And Polonius is, is , uh , very downplayed. So there really is no father figure present actively in either affilia or Hamlet's life in the film. And then the other thing that I found interesting, the sisters , uh , I love the idea of the fact that they're , they're yin and Yang, that they both been with Claudius and one way , well one does, but only because he just man , yes. And the fact that he is, you know , on the , uh , he is the, the reason the untimely end to both of their children. Uh, and , uh, the, the, the , uh, the one depends on the other. Uh , and even see like the witches usually, and what's her, what's her character name, you know, and she is usually in , uh , black or dark colors and Gertrude and white. Yes. And especially in that last sequence when, when you see them. Uh, yeah. And that's that beautiful sequence where she sees what Gertrude's t doing and all of a sudden all her, oh my God, my sister's such an annoyance. Just drops. And it's, Oh my God, no, no, no, no, no, no. She's the older sister and the older sister and yes, in grade shrewd mentions that, that, you know, she had an older sister to protect her even though I think they're twins. So like we're talking like elder by like minutes . They are, they are like night and day, just like their, their costuming representative Bri and their presentation. They are at night and day in what they value and uh, and uh, what they, how they react to situations. Yes. Uh , and yet both of them can say, can't say no to Claudius . That's the one thing they really have in common. There's , there's something that I wanna I want to throw out there. We hear in bubs , in a mom , we , we love

Speaker 1 47:30

the movies that we're watching. Hopefully we're lovers. You know, we're, we're here to , uh, be advocates for the independent film that we are talking about. So I wanted to just read a couple of , um , uh, highlight reviews of people who trashed to this. [inaudible] going to lie. You think Trisha and I were having a quick debate on this and then she did a quick review of , of some of them. I had actually read some of the reviews, the trashed reviews, and I'm like, fuck these assholes. Well, everybody, you know, it depends. You have a bad day and look at it from a different point, but you're just fucking truly way to see Shakespeare is the one way you've always seen this play done. Just like the one way star wars is done as the only way it's going , where it's going to be done. I have done repertory theater now when I did repertory theater at Illinois Shakespeare Festival , uh, you know , uh , shout out Illinois shakes. Uh , I was of course a , you know, third spearmint on left. Uh, no real, no real parts, so I was brilliant as third spearman . Um, but there were people who would sit there with the Riverside or the Arden , uh, you know, book in their lap and, and you could actually hear them like when lines were cut or, or lines were, were, were, you know, told a different way. They'd be like, man , I did it wrong. Put the book down. Just wants to fucking show. All right . So , um, let's start with , um, Chicago reader. Um, it says the picture is nowhere near as memorable as other controversial twists on misunderstood women of history and fiction. Whoa. What could they give an example? I was going to say what other, I could read the full review and maybe they do go into it, but that's the highlight. Okay. These are, these are relish tomatoes highlights to me that that person from Chicago reader, God love u Chicago reader , um , was having a bad day. That that makes no sense to me. Never liked hamlet. That's possible. But that prejudice there is a really strong female film outright from start to finish is from real views. There wasn't much to Hamlet's Ophelia and there's not a lot more to this productions version of her. Yeah, I don't think they like hamlet. I think that's somebody who just doesn't like the play . This is from the Australian Financial Review. I don't know why they are reviewing movies. Fox and hound going to review with Julia Roberts [inaudible] which I actually just watched for the first time, so it's very, very fresh in my brain. Then now you know horse and Hound [inaudible] say five. Is there any horses you're film? Well it took place in space. The first casualty is Shakespeare's richness of language, which was obviously judged too complicated to be imposed upon a generation brought up on social media. Okay. I would say that

Speaker 3 50:27

person is very full of themselves. Extremely or you know, just full of self-like you know, like yourself a lot or way too much of a Shakespeare for you know , and if they're gonna use social media then like that, that that right there, that statement is like a mental selfie. They just love talking about how smart they are. Yeah. Okay. And now I'm going to do my own plug. Uh , no fear, Shakespeare , uh , anybody who really wants to get a lot out of , uh, the text , uh , because at least Elizabethan , uh , language is not something that is, this lang is gone. Nobody knows it. And so it's one of those things where you get extra stuff out of the text . Like there are some things you can totally follow. Cause if you read enough Shakespeare, you're gonna follow it, right? But then there are things that are even , uh, you know, slip past. But usually it's the filthy stuff that you lose out on because you're not aware of the slang. Oh , he's , so I would , I would very much recommend it if you really enjoy filthy stuff because Shakespeare's got a lot of, yeah. And to me,

Speaker 1 51:28

w w what I like about this is right off the bat, affilia tells you, look, you think you know this story, but that's myth. That's that , that's somebody else's interpreter ,

Speaker 3 51:41

Laurie in language. That's not what we actually said. Okay. Let me tell you what we actually said. That was that those were my top three.

Speaker 1 51:48

Okay. All right, good . One. One thing that we , we really do appreciate is our listeners and thank you for guys for choosing this podcast and supporting specifically independent films. As you can see, we are very big advocates of independent films, you know, so , uh , keep your ear out for our next episode , uh, which we will be talking about. Hearts beat loud, starting Nick Offerman and Kiersey Clemons. The drowning of Philia , uh, can be found on our website , uh, along with a couple a beautiful shots of it. It is a very beautiful , uh, drink. This , um , goes down nice and easy, comes back with a vengeance , uh , to check out our show notes , uh, or drop us a note , uh, visit us on , uh , imbibe cinema.com. And once again, I am Jonathan c leg and thanks for imbibing with us. Cheers.

Speaker 2 52:39

[inaudible] make change. [inaudible]

Speaker 3 52:55

this is me. Woe is me. They have seen what I've seen.