Much Ado is also way up for my fav Shakespeare, but it's also one of the ones where I am more open to different interpretations than some (I have exceedingly strong opinions about aspects of Midsummer's and Lear, for example.)
I have a longer write up in a locked post, but let me do a summary here too!
First, I really liked it! A lot! Which is the other part of why I'm going to go see it again.
Joss Whedon is *excellent* at ensemble cast, and this is such an ensemble cast play. Hero and Claudio have as much personality and agency as you can wrangle out of the text, and I really loved a lot of the staging. (I also really ended up liking the timelessness of the black and white filming: a lot of it read as sort of 50s era, except you have moments of modern technology.)
In describing this to people, I finally ended up with an explanation that works for me, which is that it's got a very Hufflepuff aesthetic to it: it has a lot of food and drink, and a lot of scenes in the kitchen, and a lot of playing on family and loyalty and trust and honest. (Where, in contrast, the Branagh version reads to me as very Ravenclaw: all wit and cutting intelligence.) Whether that comparison makes sense outside my head, I'm not so sure, but there you are.
People keep telling me to watch Elementary, and I've not had enough spare brain to pick it up, but I'm looking forward to it. (Picking up the quality of life bit in a separate comment.)
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Date: 2013-07-24 02:20 pm (UTC)I have a longer write up in a locked post, but let me do a summary here too!
First, I really liked it! A lot! Which is the other part of why I'm going to go see it again.
Joss Whedon is *excellent* at ensemble cast, and this is such an ensemble cast play. Hero and Claudio have as much personality and agency as you can wrangle out of the text, and I really loved a lot of the staging. (I also really ended up liking the timelessness of the black and white filming: a lot of it read as sort of 50s era, except you have moments of modern technology.)
In describing this to people, I finally ended up with an explanation that works for me, which is that it's got a very Hufflepuff aesthetic to it: it has a lot of food and drink, and a lot of scenes in the kitchen, and a lot of playing on family and loyalty and trust and honest. (Where, in contrast, the Branagh version reads to me as very Ravenclaw: all wit and cutting intelligence.) Whether that comparison makes sense outside my head, I'm not so sure, but there you are.
People keep telling me to watch Elementary, and I've not had enough spare brain to pick it up, but I'm looking forward to it. (Picking up the quality of life bit in a separate comment.)