It shall go hard...

[erastes]

Because my mate tharain is playing Antonio in the Merchant of Venice this week, i rented the Irons/Fiennes/Pacino version.

Thoughts!

* Don't miss it. It's unutterably slashy. Antonio is very obviously from their first brief scene together, madly in love with Bassiano.
* The "choose a box scenes" reminded me delightfully of "Deal or No Deal"  "I'm ready for the question, Portia" - or even further back "Double your Money" with Hughie Green. God I'm Old.
* Bassiano deserves the death of a 1000 cuts. Nasty venal using little TWINK who makes a fool of a doting older man - and (imho) courts Portia without truly loving her any more than the other suitors did - just to regain the dilapidation of his estates.
* With that said - Fiennes plays it dead right.  When Portia says how much she loves him, he looks decidedly uncomfortable.
* The whole box thing seems really silly actually, as all it would take would be for a failed gold and a failed silver suitor to tell the story abroad and the next man would be lucky. Which might explain why Bassiano was lucky, of course.  I don't believe any of his twaddle. *hate hate hate*
* A VERY rude joke about inseminating that I'd never noticed before.  I love Shakespeare because good actors can make it so understandable.

Comments

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Oh, Bassanio is a total ass, and in the text, Antonio just comes off as whiny. But the film turned them into such a lovely OTP. I was also sort of rooting for an OT3 with Portia by the end. Maybe if she disguised herself as a boy again...

[cleo]

My first graduate level paper was on the homoerotic subtext of the play as portrayed by that film and the Trevor Nunn production. Good times.

Irons just does such a good job, as does Fiennes with it all.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

It just shows the difference. I went to an all-girls grammar school and it was ALL about Portia - there was not a WHISPER of anything else!

I'm very grateful to tharain to have opened up the play to me because I had no idea.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

that first smouldering look. *dies*

I hope B spends all her money and ends up fat and miserable and A finds himself someone less usery.

[liriaen.livejournal.com]

I can't get enough of that version. The slashyness was so out and on the table! Also, Al Pacino was just heartbreakingly good, I thought. I've just rewatched the entire Godfather series, watching him age in fast forward, if you will, and then this - in the end he's so, so broken. Akh.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Al Pacino was very good - surprisingly so. When I was at school it was all "the clever woman wins the day" but now I see it as a tragedy of two men who lose everything they love.

[liriaen.livejournal.com]

Two men who lose everything they love - you nail it; that was exactly what I felt in the end as well. The young folk saunter off and away, into their pink sunset, and behind stay two dented old men who gave everything, and were rewarded worse than poorly.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

that first smouldering look. *dies*

Oh, yes. I remember being in the cinema with two of my friends and the three of us actually fighting not to squee. ;)

I actually suspect that's the sequel to The Merchant of Venice: how Portia runs off with Nerissa and Antonio finds a beautiful boy in Greece, leaving Bassanio flat.

[cleo]

Lol. I went to a women's college, but I had a very liberal Shakespeare teacher. She totally opened my eyes.

[antychan.livejournal.com]

*pops in* Hello, um... recently I was cruising google picture search for pictures of pretty men in period clothing (as material for a historical slashy manip... do you happen to know where to find pics like that?) and I came across this interview with you, where you mentioned that you wrote this first massive Malfoy slash fic and then got pissed because it wasn't original and you therefore couldn't sell it... I told my BFF about the interview and she now wants to read it, but I can't find it anymore... would you be able to point me in the right direction?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Hello!

I recently did a post for The Macaronis about men in costume drama, which has photos and also a load of You Tube videos which might be very helpful.

http://historicromance.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/thursday-13-men-in-costume/

I'm not sure where the interview is specifically - I tend to tell that story a lot (because it's true!)

but there's one version of it here:
http://lustbites.blogspot.com/2007/03/here-at-lust-bites-we-are-always.html

[antychan.livejournal.com]

Re Link #1: Uhh, baby!! *runs off to look* Tony Curtis... slave... bath... *faints* Have you watched "Master & Commander"? It's one of the slashiest films ever.

Re Link #2: That's the one! With the "Wilde" stills photograph! Thank you!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

No worries! Yes, Master & COmmander is wonderful - it was almost impossible to choose just 13 films. I'm quite sure that we'll be doing more posts along the same lines again.