Tonight I watched Part Two of "The Hollow Crown", which is also part of the title of the play it was taken from : "Henry VI Part Two" by William Shakespeare. Well, you know how I was saying last night, about "Part One", that there was a lot of treachery and intrigue, and battles galore?
In "Part Two", you can forget about the treachery and intrigue. There are those elements but basically it's just one bloody battle after another for two straight hours.
Last night in my review I exhorted you to "see it, see it, see it"! - and I still do - but I must now warn you that if you are gonna make it through Part Two, you will be subjected to some of the worst onscreen violence that I personally have seen since that godawful episode of "The Walking Dead" that caused me to abandon that show two years back.
The battles are filled with rage and ruthless aggression, and depict the kind of hand-to-hand personal combat that existed exclusively in war before gunpowder came into wide use. It's all broadswords and axes and bludgeoning and it's made even more terrible by the fact that these warriors have so much hatred for the other side that they become crazed with bloodthirst. This is amply demonstrated in scene after scene, and if you are in the least bit squeamish then I cannot recommend it.
In the story, The War Of The Roses continues, and the spiritual, pacifist King Henry VI tries to entreat his noblemen to abandon their grudges and ambitions, but to no avail. They all see Henry as weak, so they battle one another's forces, each with the goal of claiming the crown for himself.
To use a baseball analogy, you almost need a scorecard to tell all of the players, and whomever is in charge changes from battle to battle, as do loyalties.
It's just straight up brutality, with Henry as The Christ Figure, suffering and praying to God while chaos surrounds him. He abhors violence, and in that way he was very much ahead of his time, because to shun one's wartime duty in Europe in the middle ages, or worse yet, to proclaim pacifism, was akin to treason, not to mention a blight on one's manhood. It's odd or ironic, because some Europeans may now look at America as the soul of violence, but we got it from them because we are their descendants. The history of Europe, until about 75 years ago, was one of almost non-stop warfare, and in the middle ages, before guns made killing impersonal, these wars and battles were fought with a level of anger and cruelty that - to me (and to King Henry) - must certainly have been directly influenced by The Devil.
So, to sum up concerning Part Two, it continues the fascinating tale of Henry VI and The War Of The Roses, as written by our pal William Shakespeare, so it is no lowbrow work, despite the horrors that are witnessed. The unmatched skill with language is all there as you would expect, and the performances are towering, especially Tom Sturridge as Henry. But the violence is of the worst degree, so that is my warning.
Had the context not been a marvelous work of Shakespeare, I'm not sure I would have been able to make it through, myself. But tomorrow night, onward into Part Three, the final play in the trilogy, about the reign of Richard III, to be played by the redoubtable Benedict Cumberbatch. ////
No hike today. My knees were a little sore from yesterday's trek, so I just stuck to my normal CSUN walk. I am reading the David Lynch book, and wow.......what an amazing life he has had. He seems to have been "on the go", creating art and films, since he graduated high school, and he has so much energy for getting stuff done, and for creating, that you just go, "this is a very special human being".
I think I would need to be twins just to get half the stuff done that he does, but his story is incredibly inspiring for all creative people. It is told in a breezy narrative that is easy to read, with tons and tons of anecdotes and history from his life and career, and I just can't recommend it highly enough. He is one of my Most Important People. ////
That's all for tonight. We had good singin' in church. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment