I quite like some Shakespeare plays. It’s mainly the big,
more mature works that I like, such as King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth,
Hamlet, etc, but I do often feel it’s a cultural stick that literature-loving people
hit less literature-loving people with. And, if the less literature-loving
people don’t like being hit with that stick, that somehow makes them intellectually
inferior or a bit thick.
They’re not. They just aren’t massively interested in plays
that are 400 years old and the product of a commercial writer, who’s been
moulded into a heritage icon by various literary institutions and academics in
the last 100 or so years.
In fact, the only people I know who really, really like
Shakespeare tend to be actors, who see performing it as the height of their
professional lives because they get to mouth elegant and archaic poetry, and
directors, who use their interpretation of a particular play, to put their
artistic marker down. As a one-time theatre director, I have certainly been
guilty of the latter in the past. It’s can sometimes be good or it can
sometimes be a bit self-indulgent. I’ve seen both.
I’ve also sat through too many bad productions of
Shakespeare plays to know that not everyone should be allowed to produce Shakespeare
plays. It takes a cast and crew of real quality to make them work and breathe
enough life into them to make them entertaining and relevant. Because, let’s be
frank, the jokes don’t translate particularly well, while the physical comedy
and oft-repeated identity swap slapstick is only just OK. Those same
Bard-lovers, however, would criticise the same gag on Mrs Brown’s Boys.
All of which brings us to The Fast and the Furious (TFTF)
movie series.
This is now on film number eight in the series of a planned
ten. I am a late-comer to the franchise but I am genuinely wowed by it. The
latest film has also become the highest-grossing film of all time. It is a
worldwide smash.
Sadly, I have yet to see number eight but I have seen the previous seven and I am slowly becoming convinced that they are better than anything Shakespeare ever did. And here’s why…
i) Themes: Bard-lovers often talk about the universality of
themes in Shakespeare plays: ambition in Julius Caesar and Macbeth, pride in
King Lear, jealousy in Othello, indecision in Hamlet, etc. TFTF series has
these themes, too, and it also throws in betrayal, loyalty, love and a whole host
of others that also feature in Shakespeare plays. But it does them much
quicker, which is better for busy people who don’t have three hours to listen
to a whining Dane who should make up his mind.
ii) Action: Most of the big set piece battles or other
scenes in Shakespeare plays happen off-stage. So there are a few sword fights
here and there, but most of the cool, action stuff is usually reported and left
to the imagination of the theatre-goer. Unless it is a film version. But the
problem even with the film versions is that the language is so old that the
description doesn’t always translate. Take Enobarbus’ speech describing
Cleopatra getting off a barge in Antony and Cleopatra. It’s evocative and full
of beautiful poetry, but it is very, very long. The Fast and the Furious just
do the scene and mainly let the action speak for itself. Did Shakespeare ever have
an ambulance crashing into a military drone after a high-speed car chase
through a tunnel? No. Would a description of that scene in an archaic tongue be
better than the actual scene itself? Would it buggery!
iii) Music: There are a few songs in Shakespeare plays, but
they’re generally quite melancholy affairs, such as Feste’s song, Hey-ho, the
Wind and the Rain, in Twelfth Night. Most experts also suggest that the music
in Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre would be incidental music to set mood, etc.
So we can assume it was hackneyed stuff that was nothing to write home about.
All TFTF films, however, include what I am reliably informed by young
people can only be described as banging soundtracks. They compliment and
support the action because of the excellent sound editing technology. There was
also no hip-hop in the Shakespeare plays. Loser!
iv) Feminism: Shakespeare plays were so sexist that women
were not allowed to play women on stage. If they did so, they were seen as a
bit slaggy or immoral. So blokes took the great female roles of Juliet, Lady
Macbeth, Cleopatra, Gertrude, Ophelia, Goneril, etc. The whole world of
Shakespearean theatre was well sexist. In the world of TFTF, however,
women play women’s roles and there are quite a lot of actresses. The likes of
Michelle Rodriquez, Gina Carano, Jordana Brewster, Nathalie Emmanuel, Gal Gadot
and Ronda Rowsey also kick all sorts of arse. It is true that lots of extras
wear very little so the feminist argument may lose some ground here. But what
are folk supposed to wear in hot climates? Overcoats? That would look equally
ridiculous…
v) Returning characters: It’s true that a few characters do
return in Shakespeare plays. Sir John Falstaff appeared in both parts of Henry
IV and got the star role in The Merry Wives of Windsor, while Mark Antony and
Octavius Caesar both turned up in Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. But
the return of guest characters is not a major feature in Shakespeare plays. TFTF
films series has lots of them, though, and their reappearance is both familiar
and allows for the continuations of previous story arcs. It’s franchise genius.
Imagine things getting really shit for King Lear then man of action Fortinbras
turns up to help him kick the crap of Edmund and he saves Cordelia, too. That
would be better than the grief-fest ending the play currently has. Or how about
Lady Macbeth ventures south to give Goneril tips on being an ambitious bitch?
Shakespeare plays would be better if popular characters could return.
So. In conclusion, TFTF film series kicks the granny
out of anything Shakespeare ever did.
PS. There are also cars in TFTF franchise, too. But I
don’t like about cars, so it’s not worth discussing. But these films do have
more cars than Shakespeare plays so that would be a win for people who do like
cars.
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