WEBVTT - Episode 3: 4 Hamlets 0:00:15.064 --> 0:00:36.584 Pushkin beat, nibat schluck dujaviets. She took Australia, Sheili destiny, 0:00:37.384 --> 0:00:39.704 Hey m hey, Barry. You know what that is we're 0:00:39.704 --> 0:00:42.944 hearing um. It sounds like someone very serious speaking in 0:00:42.984 --> 0:00:47.264 an Eastern European language of some sort exactly. And we're 0:00:47.304 --> 0:00:51.304 also hearing the sound of a busman's holiday. A busman's holiday. 0:00:51.344 --> 0:00:53.984 Beg your pardon. You know, when you go on vacation 0:00:54.144 --> 0:00:56.744 and end up doing the same thing you do at work. 0:00:57.104 --> 0:01:01.024 Sounds like stories coming. So I run a Shakespeare theater 0:01:01.184 --> 0:01:04.384 right the Old Globe in San Diego. Now. My wife 0:01:04.424 --> 0:01:06.864 is in the travel business, and last summer her company 0:01:07.064 --> 0:01:09.024 took a group on a riverboat trip down the day 0:01:09.264 --> 0:01:12.504 Ube River. We made that our family's summer vacation. That 0:01:12.544 --> 0:01:18.184 sounds amazing. It was gorgeous, Vienna, Budapest, all these little 0:01:18.224 --> 0:01:22.664 Austrian villages, and the scenery on the Danube is like breathtaking. 0:01:23.424 --> 0:01:26.824 One day we dock in Bradoslava, which is the capital 0:01:26.824 --> 0:01:29.304 of Slovakia. My wife had to work, my kids didn't 0:01:29.304 --> 0:01:32.304 feel like getting off the boat, so I went wandering around. 0:01:32.984 --> 0:01:36.824 One of the highlights of this really charming city is 0:01:36.864 --> 0:01:41.504 a huge medieval castle that's perched on a hill overlooking 0:01:41.544 --> 0:01:45.544 the whole place. I hiked up and the views are stunning. 0:01:45.664 --> 0:01:48.664 You see what looks like half of Europe nice, and 0:01:48.704 --> 0:01:52.824 the castle itself is amazing. I went walking around through 0:01:53.024 --> 0:01:57.224 gardens and big old gates and huge wooden doors. I 0:01:57.344 --> 0:02:00.344 go down this long corridor and I turn a corner 0:02:00.384 --> 0:02:03.864 into some random courtyard, and all of a sudden, I'm 0:02:03.904 --> 0:02:08.024 facing a little stage with lighting and rows and rows 0:02:08.064 --> 0:02:10.704 of seats and sound equipment and like an army of 0:02:10.744 --> 0:02:13.944 people milling around. And I realize that somebody's made a 0:02:14.024 --> 0:02:17.304 theater here, and there's a company of actors rehearsing a play, 0:02:17.384 --> 0:02:24.624 and so I watch for a while. Umbria sput niche 0:02:24.624 --> 0:02:30.344 fiats a namich. Let's see, there's a guy who's the star. 0:02:31.024 --> 0:02:34.824 He's smoking a cigarette, which everybody in Bratislava is doing, 0:02:35.144 --> 0:02:38.664 and he's wearing this long black coat. He's intense looking, 0:02:39.024 --> 0:02:42.464 his eyes are darting around like his soul is on fire. 0:02:43.024 --> 0:02:45.864 And he walks center stage and he launches into this 0:02:45.944 --> 0:02:51.264 long speech and I'm listening and the penny drops. He's Hamlet. 0:02:52.304 --> 0:02:54.424 I've left my own Shakespeare theater to get some R 0:02:54.464 --> 0:02:56.584 and R and I go halfway around the world, and 0:02:56.624 --> 0:02:59.464 I wander around some old tourist site, and I end 0:02:59.544 --> 0:03:03.184 up at a rehearsal of Hamlet, a busman's holiday. Yes, 0:03:03.664 --> 0:03:07.704 it's like a magnet berry. Once Shakespeare is in your soul, 0:03:08.064 --> 0:03:11.624 you are is drawn to him. You find him everywhere. 0:03:11.904 --> 0:03:14.744 It's like there's no getting away. There needs no ghost 0:03:14.864 --> 0:03:18.144 come from beyond the grave to tell us this truly 0:03:19.224 --> 0:03:33.144 TuS vedomia zenasorobis bubbiltsov lutska. I'm Barry Edelstein, and I 0:03:33.264 --> 0:03:35.344 run the Old Globe in San Diego, one of the 0:03:35.384 --> 0:03:38.584 countries leading Shakespeare's theaters. And this is where there's a 0:03:38.584 --> 0:03:42.784 will finding Shakespeare from the Globe and pushkin industries. Our 0:03:42.784 --> 0:03:46.304 show discovers Shakespeare in all sorts of unexpected places and 0:03:46.384 --> 0:03:49.024 asks what he's doing there and what his presence means 0:03:49.024 --> 0:03:53.424 about him and about us. My companion on this search 0:03:53.464 --> 0:03:56.144 for old William is a friend and colleague with their 0:03:56.184 --> 0:03:59.944 own deep interest in Shakespeare. The writer and director am Weinstein. 0:04:00.544 --> 0:04:03.944 That sounds like it was a great vacation. Barry the 0:04:04.144 --> 0:04:07.664 cameo from The Melancholy Dame. Notwithstanding he made a cameo 0:04:07.744 --> 0:04:11.304 in my vacation. But he's been a star everywhere else. 0:04:11.904 --> 0:04:15.664 It's been the year of Hamlet. M The Metropolitan Opera 0:04:15.664 --> 0:04:40.464 in New York premiered a new Hamlet opera, da Here's 0:04:40.544 --> 0:04:46.344 that Home. The twenty twenty two Pulitzer Prize for Drama 0:04:46.504 --> 0:04:48.744 went to a play called Fat ham which takes the 0:04:48.744 --> 0:04:52.024 Hamlet story and puts it at a backyard barbecue in 0:04:52.024 --> 0:04:55.424 the South. I think my uncle had my father killed, 0:04:56.264 --> 0:04:58.264 and my father wants me to kill my uncle. Jo, 0:04:59.944 --> 0:05:02.184 what do you do? Wind up a kill nobody? Yeah, 0:05:02.224 --> 0:05:05.424 I think it's probably mad Heart exactly. And a film 0:05:05.464 --> 0:05:09.064 called The Northman brought the story that Shakespeare based Hamlet 0:05:09.104 --> 0:05:13.584 it on to multiplexes and streaming services everywhere. I am, 0:05:13.704 --> 0:05:17.464 I'm not a bad wolf son. I'm going out of 0:05:17.504 --> 0:05:32.384 London war Rafen and I WHOA. That is intense, you think? Oh? 0:05:32.464 --> 0:05:35.664 And there was more. The Stratford Festival in Canada had 0:05:35.664 --> 0:05:38.384 a major production of Hamlet, starring the first black woman 0:05:38.424 --> 0:05:41.864 to play the part there and a famous avant guard 0:05:41.904 --> 0:05:45.024 director did a Hamlet in London that became a breakout 0:05:45.104 --> 0:05:47.744 hit and was remounted at the Park Avenue Armory in 0:05:47.744 --> 0:05:50.944 New York, and the Old Globe My Theater did a 0:05:51.064 --> 0:05:53.544 radio version of the play that you could download to 0:05:53.624 --> 0:05:56.224 listen while you're folding your laundry or going on your 0:05:56.224 --> 0:06:01.144 morning run. My father's spirit in arms. All is not well. 0:06:01.944 --> 0:06:06.504 Hamlets having a moment right now. But Barry, why that 0:06:06.784 --> 0:06:11.064 is the question in this moment of Hamlet, or yet 0:06:11.104 --> 0:06:12.944 another moment of Hamlet in a string of moments of 0:06:12.984 --> 0:06:15.544 Hamlet in the last four centuries since the play was written. 0:06:15.784 --> 0:06:17.664 Let me ask you, Barry, what do you think he's 0:06:17.704 --> 0:06:20.504 going on with all this Hamlet am all? I have 0:06:20.544 --> 0:06:24.424 her theories. But I've been lucky because I've been able 0:06:24.464 --> 0:06:27.464 to talk to some really smart people who have some 0:06:27.664 --> 0:06:31.064 really thoughtful and provocative things to say on the subject. 0:06:31.624 --> 0:06:34.864 People like James Iimes, the winner of the twenty twenty 0:06:34.864 --> 0:06:39.704 two Pulitzer Prize for his reimagined Hamlet, Robert Eggers, the 0:06:39.864 --> 0:06:43.544 visionary filmmaker who's drawing meaning from the myths that informed 0:06:43.544 --> 0:06:46.784 Shakespeare as he wrote the play. And Matthew Jocelyn, the 0:06:46.864 --> 0:06:50.544 librettist of the Mets Hamlet opera. We'll get into my 0:06:50.584 --> 0:07:15.704 conversations with them after a break. A full disclosure, I 0:07:15.744 --> 0:07:18.224 did not see the opera at the Metropolitan Opera House. 0:07:18.224 --> 0:07:21.624 I saw it at nine am in a multiplex in 0:07:21.664 --> 0:07:25.424 San Diego, me and twenty other you know, hardy souls 0:07:25.464 --> 0:07:29.504 who got up early. You are virtuous beyond words. That's 0:07:29.544 --> 0:07:33.904 Matthew Jocelyn. The MET Live in HD simulcasts Metropolitan Opera 0:07:33.944 --> 0:07:37.744 performances to cinemas all over the world, including a really 0:07:37.824 --> 0:07:42.064 thrilling new opera of Hamlet. Matthew is the librettist. I 0:07:42.064 --> 0:07:45.544 asked him to explain what that means. It's funny. When 0:07:45.584 --> 0:07:48.744 I arrived at the Met for this present series of performances, 0:07:49.504 --> 0:07:51.064 it took a couple of days for me to get 0:07:51.104 --> 0:07:53.664 my security pass. So I finally went to the head 0:07:53.664 --> 0:07:55.584 of security and said, I, you know, I need to 0:07:55.664 --> 0:07:58.664 check in every day with all of my certificates. Why 0:07:58.664 --> 0:08:01.024 don't I have my security pass? And she said, oh, 0:08:01.064 --> 0:08:05.984 you're Matthew Johnson. You're the librettist. I just don't know 0:08:06.544 --> 0:08:08.584 what category to put you in. I've never met a 0:08:08.664 --> 0:08:11.784 liberty before, and I said, that's all right, most of 0:08:11.864 --> 0:08:16.384 us are dead. So to explain what is a librettist, 0:08:16.584 --> 0:08:18.824 we are essentially the book writer. That is where the 0:08:18.864 --> 0:08:21.984 people who write the text and the words that are 0:08:21.984 --> 0:08:25.784 going to be put to music for an opera. Matthew 0:08:25.904 --> 0:08:31.064 and composer Brett Dean have reinvented Hamlet really with this 0:08:31.384 --> 0:08:36.024 sweeping and hugely moving score and a collage of a 0:08:36.104 --> 0:08:38.864 text put together by someone who clearly knows his way 0:08:38.864 --> 0:08:43.064 around the play. Shakespeare has been frequently brought into the 0:08:43.144 --> 0:08:47.704 opera house, famously, Giuseppe Verdi did a bunch of them, Rassini, Brittain, 0:08:47.944 --> 0:08:53.144 Oddists right, Purcell, What is that about? Why make Shakespeare 0:08:53.384 --> 0:09:00.424 into an opera? Great opera is inherently theatrical. It's looking 0:09:00.624 --> 0:09:06.504 for theatrical moments and broad, large theatrical gestures that at 0:09:06.584 --> 0:09:11.504 the same time contains some kind of broad emotional content, 0:09:11.624 --> 0:09:16.024 a sweep with which one can tell a story and 0:09:16.304 --> 0:09:20.984 grip the emotional fiber of the audience. And Shakespeare was 0:09:20.984 --> 0:09:25.024 a master of that. He was a master of finding 0:09:25.504 --> 0:09:30.864 a narrative that had both the dramatic content and the 0:09:30.904 --> 0:09:52.544 emotional content and the intellectual or the thinking content. That 0:09:52.664 --> 0:09:56.744 music is amazing and it really gets under your skin, 0:09:57.304 --> 0:10:00.904 and also it's really innovative. I'm no music scholar, and 0:10:01.024 --> 0:10:03.424 I don't really have the language to talk about how 0:10:03.504 --> 0:10:07.224 music works and what it does. But Brett Dean has 0:10:07.224 --> 0:10:11.664 composed modern class music and you can hear in it 0:10:11.864 --> 0:10:17.384 the influences of the twentieth century minimalism, atonality, and like 0:10:17.504 --> 0:10:21.504 the play, it's also got these passages of Romanticism. And 0:10:21.584 --> 0:10:24.424 he kind of broke the orchestra out of the orchestra pit, 0:10:24.544 --> 0:10:29.424 didn't he. He placed small satellite orchestras around the huge 0:10:29.424 --> 0:10:32.624 auditorium of the met There was a small percussion section 0:10:32.704 --> 0:10:36.384 tucked away in a high balcony, and sometimes singers sang there. 0:10:36.784 --> 0:10:40.024 There were other little installations of instruments kind of hidden 0:10:40.064 --> 0:10:43.344 away in corners of the theater. So you were surrounded 0:10:43.344 --> 0:10:46.544 by the score, immersed in it. That is so cool. 0:10:46.784 --> 0:10:50.144 And on top of that, Dean used this wild combination 0:10:50.224 --> 0:10:53.864 of found objects to make sound. Plastic water bottles that 0:10:54.024 --> 0:10:57.424 scrunched and crunched, rusty springs from an old car, and 0:10:57.784 --> 0:11:03.184 stones banged together. Matthew told me about it. The principle was, 0:11:03.304 --> 0:11:05.744 how do we get inside Hamlet's head? How do we 0:11:05.864 --> 0:11:10.424 have the experience of something that is all invasive and 0:11:10.544 --> 0:11:15.944 all pervasive, and from which one cannot extricate oneself, And 0:11:16.184 --> 0:11:19.584 Hamlet cannot extricate himself from his own thoughts, and that's 0:11:19.624 --> 0:11:23.104 exactly what the orchestra is providing us with as an experience. 0:11:23.424 --> 0:11:26.064 And in the same way that Brett Dean sort of 0:11:26.144 --> 0:11:29.664 fractured the orchestra into bits and spread it around the place, 0:11:30.344 --> 0:11:33.864 Matthew took a kind of kaleidoscopic approach to the text 0:11:33.904 --> 0:11:38.224 of Hamlet. You reassigned lines from one character to another, 0:11:38.264 --> 0:11:42.904 you rearranged scenes, so you entered into almost as a 0:11:43.104 --> 0:11:46.424 co author with Shakespeare. Is that fair to say? Yeah? 0:11:46.464 --> 0:11:50.064 He was very generous with his co authorship, I have 0:11:50.144 --> 0:11:52.744 to say, because he provided me with the essential material 0:11:53.384 --> 0:11:57.024 and he made put up no obstacles whatsoever to my 0:11:57.304 --> 0:12:01.944 delving into it. I asked Matthew the big question, why Hamlet? 0:12:02.584 --> 0:12:08.024 Why now? Yeah, there's a kind of prevalence of this 0:12:08.344 --> 0:12:15.064 unknowah will hero this person who seems to experience life 0:12:15.864 --> 0:12:21.424 in such an intense way, experiences loss in such an 0:12:21.424 --> 0:12:25.784 intense way, and love in such an intense way. The 0:12:25.944 --> 0:12:31.304 play is essentially also about this moral battle. Do I 0:12:31.384 --> 0:12:36.464 follow my father who's asking me to be untrue to myself, 0:12:37.504 --> 0:12:40.264 who's asking me to become a man of revenge, when 0:12:40.304 --> 0:12:42.664 I'm a man of philosophy, who's asking me to become 0:12:42.704 --> 0:12:45.504 a man of prosaic action when I'm a man of poetry, 0:12:47.064 --> 0:12:50.904 or do I follow my own poetic self and be 0:12:51.344 --> 0:12:55.664 the lover that I am with Ophelia and be and 0:12:55.904 --> 0:13:17.824 be the soul that I am within the world. There's 0:13:17.864 --> 0:13:21.984 a very famous and very waggish English stage director who 0:13:22.024 --> 0:13:24.344 likes to say that the first rule of working on 0:13:24.384 --> 0:13:27.664 Shakespeare in the theater is to remember that you're alive 0:13:28.224 --> 0:13:32.824 and he's dead. There's a certain license granted to a 0:13:32.904 --> 0:13:36.344 contemporary theater maker when you engage with a writer who's 0:13:36.344 --> 0:13:40.784 been six feet under for centuries. Pretty Much every production 0:13:40.784 --> 0:13:44.544 of Shakespeare we see today, in whatever form, is an adaptation. 0:13:45.344 --> 0:13:49.064 Matthew Jocelyn's libretto is the Hamlet we all know, and 0:13:49.144 --> 0:13:52.904 at the same time it's something totally fresh. Fat ham 0:13:52.984 --> 0:13:55.064 kind of works in the same way, like it takes 0:13:55.384 --> 0:13:57.624 the raw material of Hamlet, but it rearranges it, It It 0:13:57.744 --> 0:14:01.424 makes it new, It moves it to a new location, 0:14:01.544 --> 0:14:11.544 a new time, even a new culture, where there's a 0:14:11.584 --> 0:14:19.424 will We'll be back after a short break. I want 0:14:19.424 --> 0:14:22.304 to talk to you about what My daddy is dead. 0:14:22.384 --> 0:14:25.664 You know what I'm talking about. The King, my queen 0:14:26.104 --> 0:14:36.864 is dead. Huh, it's Shakespeare kind of. My name is James, IIMs. 0:14:37.264 --> 0:14:40.864 I am the playwright of fat Ham, among other plays. 0:14:41.024 --> 0:14:44.584 I am associate. Yes, is that right? I am an 0:14:44.624 --> 0:14:47.464 associate professor of Theater of Villanova. That's right. I have 0:14:47.544 --> 0:14:51.104 tenure and I am a co artistic director of the 0:14:51.104 --> 0:14:55.024 Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You are also the most 0:14:55.064 --> 0:14:58.544 recent winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. That's correct. 0:14:59.744 --> 0:15:02.304 I've quite gotten used to adding that to like the 0:15:02.424 --> 0:15:06.104 list of things that I've done. James's play is a 0:15:06.184 --> 0:15:10.024 loose adaptation of Hamlet. The bones, the players still there, 0:15:10.144 --> 0:15:12.744 the fathers died, the uncle's murdered the father, the uncle 0:15:12.824 --> 0:15:16.984 marries the mother right, but then it becomes its own thing. 0:15:17.464 --> 0:15:21.704 It follows a character named Juicy who's my Hamlet, and 0:15:22.264 --> 0:15:24.984 Juicy is trying to figure out what he wants the 0:15:25.024 --> 0:15:26.664 rest of his life to look like, and then he's 0:15:26.744 --> 0:15:29.664 visited by the ghost of his father and all those 0:15:29.784 --> 0:15:32.504 questions sort of get blown up for him. But while 0:15:32.544 --> 0:15:36.424 fat Ham follows the basic outline of Shakespeare's play, James 0:15:36.664 --> 0:15:41.464 doesn't set his version in Denmark. Juicy is black and queer, 0:15:41.704 --> 0:15:44.304 living in a small town in the South, in a 0:15:44.344 --> 0:15:51.424 family a very colorful, bright but complicated people. Nic what 0:15:52.224 --> 0:15:56.224 Shakespeare if you burn up that dead oh white man wal, 0:15:57.784 --> 0:16:00.344 I want to talk about his ass. At it's core, 0:16:00.424 --> 0:16:04.384 it's a question of what of our family's legacy in 0:16:04.424 --> 0:16:06.904 history do we want to hold onto? And what of 0:16:06.984 --> 0:16:09.544 our family's legacy in history do you want to release? 0:16:09.904 --> 0:16:12.784 And Juicy has to sort of make those decisions for himself. 0:16:12.824 --> 0:16:16.504 He leads the family through a transformation. Yeah, and which 0:16:16.544 --> 0:16:18.744 I find that, you know, in my family, I feel 0:16:18.784 --> 0:16:21.664 that younger generations are often the ones that show me, 0:16:21.984 --> 0:16:25.944 and you know, my mom and my mom's siblings, new 0:16:25.984 --> 0:16:29.664 ways of thinking, new ways of experiencing the world. So 0:16:29.664 --> 0:16:32.384 I think it's very true to how this current moment 0:16:32.424 --> 0:16:34.904 feels in terms of how the generations are interacting with 0:16:34.944 --> 0:16:38.624 each other. The striking thing about fat Ham is how 0:16:38.704 --> 0:16:43.504 funny it is. It's a raucous, wild comedy, which Hamlet 0:16:43.744 --> 0:16:48.424 generally is not. No, the pile of corpses on stage 0:16:48.424 --> 0:16:51.384 at the end is not exactly a laugh riot. I 0:16:51.424 --> 0:16:55.184 asked James about that. Early drafts of this play were 0:16:55.224 --> 0:16:59.664 really quite faithful to Hamlet proper, and then you run 0:16:59.664 --> 0:17:01.264 into the problem of the end of the play. It's 0:17:01.304 --> 0:17:03.664 not really a problem that you run into the reality 0:17:03.784 --> 0:17:05.464 of the end of the play, which is that everybody's 0:17:05.504 --> 0:17:07.704 basically dead at the end of the play. And I 0:17:07.744 --> 0:17:11.104 didn't want to write that story. And so, you know, 0:17:11.224 --> 0:17:14.264 Hamlet was the thing that got me going in terms 0:17:14.264 --> 0:17:18.144 of working on a play that was exploring cycles of violence, 0:17:18.944 --> 0:17:21.504 inherited trauma, all of these things. All of these things 0:17:21.504 --> 0:17:25.344 that Hamlet, the Shakespearean character, deals with, and he just 0:17:25.464 --> 0:17:27.264 decides to engage with them in a different way than 0:17:27.344 --> 0:17:31.384 Juicy does. But the same questions were really interesting to me. 0:17:31.464 --> 0:17:33.704 They're interesting to me as a person. They were interesting 0:17:33.744 --> 0:17:36.064 to me in terms of how I wanted to approach 0:17:37.064 --> 0:17:39.384 the story of Hamlet, which is not you know, that 0:17:39.464 --> 0:17:42.904 question isn't always central to when people are working on Hamlet. 0:17:43.784 --> 0:17:47.624 James digs deep into Hamlet in his play. He finds 0:17:47.624 --> 0:17:51.144 something remarkably personal there. The to be or not to 0:17:51.224 --> 0:17:54.464 be speeches quoted so much because I think it is 0:17:54.544 --> 0:17:57.904 central to how people think about Hamlet, this ambivalence of 0:17:58.024 --> 0:18:01.424 like whether or not to move forward or to stop, 0:18:02.584 --> 0:18:05.864 and I think that the play holds a much more 0:18:05.904 --> 0:18:10.224 interesting question of whether or not one wants to stop 0:18:10.384 --> 0:18:14.864 or continue, but rather how one wants to continue. And 0:18:15.344 --> 0:18:17.704 I wanted to see what happens if Juicy was sort 0:18:17.704 --> 0:18:20.744 of not sure about my Hamlet wasn't so sure about 0:18:21.344 --> 0:18:23.224 how he felt about that, what he wanted to do 0:18:23.304 --> 0:18:25.184 about that, how he wanted to move forward. So the 0:18:25.224 --> 0:18:29.544 question shifted from to be or not to be? Do 0:18:29.664 --> 0:18:32.344 I be this way or do I be that way? 0:18:32.984 --> 0:18:36.784 Like the B stays, the being is consistent, you know. 0:18:37.264 --> 0:18:42.984 The how was slightly more interesting to me. I love 0:18:43.144 --> 0:18:46.464 hearing about the personal connections artists make the Hamlet. The 0:18:46.584 --> 0:18:48.984 play had a huge impact on me when I first 0:18:48.984 --> 0:18:51.304 read it. When I was in the tenth grade, I 0:18:51.384 --> 0:18:55.064 took an English class, and suddenly Hamlet was my entire identity. 0:18:55.344 --> 0:18:58.144 It's an odd thing about this play, am It grabs 0:18:58.184 --> 0:19:01.264 people and it never lets them go. I know an 0:19:01.304 --> 0:19:04.464 actor who's played the part twice and he's won Tony 0:19:04.504 --> 0:19:07.664 Awards and an Oscar and he always has a copy 0:19:07.704 --> 0:19:10.184 of Hamlet on him wherever he goes. People just they 0:19:10.304 --> 0:19:13.024 go all in with it. It's a play you wrestle 0:19:13.104 --> 0:19:21.784 with over a lifetime, not a play you just do it. 0:19:21.904 --> 0:19:24.224 As foretold that I would slay my father's killer in 0:19:24.304 --> 0:19:29.904 a burning lake till that they comes. I will torment 0:19:29.984 --> 0:19:34.864 the man who made my life. Hell. Hi, I'm Robert Eggers. 0:19:34.984 --> 0:19:39.304 I'm the director and co writer of The Northman. Robert 0:19:39.304 --> 0:19:42.584 Eggers is one of the most original filmmakers working in 0:19:42.624 --> 0:19:47.384 the American cinema. He makes historical epics and they're like 0:19:47.944 --> 0:19:52.504 touched by violence and horror. He's known for his scrupulous 0:19:52.544 --> 0:19:56.304 research and his meticulous recreations of the periods where the 0:19:56.344 --> 0:19:59.624 films are set. The Witch is an amazing film, and 0:19:59.744 --> 0:20:02.144 The Lighthouse is one of my favorite movies of the 0:20:02.144 --> 0:20:06.624 past few years. It's this crazy Herman Melville meets Hitchcock 0:20:06.784 --> 0:20:11.104 meets Bergman thing, and it's as impossible to describe as 0:20:11.104 --> 0:20:14.704 it is to forget. I just love talking with the 0:20:14.744 --> 0:20:19.464 person who made it, this idiosyncratic visionary artist. I asked 0:20:19.544 --> 0:20:21.864 him to tell me more about The Northman and what 0:20:21.904 --> 0:20:25.144 it has to do with Shakespeare. Well, funnily enough, when 0:20:25.144 --> 0:20:28.504 I describe it, I often say that simply put The 0:20:28.584 --> 0:20:34.064 Northman as Viking Hamlet. So it is based on a 0:20:34.104 --> 0:20:39.544 Scandinavian folk tale of am Lev. So young boy his 0:20:40.464 --> 0:20:43.944 father is murdered by his uncle and he needs to 0:20:43.984 --> 0:20:47.784 avenge his father's death as an adult. Basically, it's basically 0:20:47.824 --> 0:20:51.304 the plot of Hamlet. Yes, basically yeah. And revenge is 0:20:51.304 --> 0:20:56.144 something It's not something that I feel every day. That's 0:20:56.184 --> 0:21:01.144 something that doesn't excite me. But a good revenge story works. 0:21:01.704 --> 0:21:06.704 So of course, what makes Hamlet potentially so resonant is 0:21:06.744 --> 0:21:12.624 that you have today the protagonist who's unsure about the revenge, 0:21:12.984 --> 0:21:19.344 and in my film, Amlet is quite sure revenge the 0:21:19.344 --> 0:21:25.104 whole time. And while this act of vengeance is satisfying 0:21:25.144 --> 0:21:28.224 for our protagonists, like you know, to me, it seems 0:21:28.304 --> 0:21:31.864 like a waste of an entire life obsessed with the vengeance. 0:21:32.464 --> 0:21:35.984 So in a sense, your film does the thing that 0:21:36.104 --> 0:21:39.184 Shakespeare's play does, just in a different kind of way. 0:21:39.264 --> 0:21:43.144 It's still problematizes revenge as an idea, it just does 0:21:43.184 --> 0:21:47.144 it differently. I think that's fair. It's so interesting that 0:21:47.184 --> 0:21:50.824 this film that isn't even Shakespeare ends up somehow illuminating Shakespeare. 0:21:51.064 --> 0:21:54.904 I think it happens m because Robert manages to grasp 0:21:55.024 --> 0:21:59.904 something profound about Hamlet's character, and wonderfully, it's the same 0:21:59.944 --> 0:22:03.824 thing that Matthew Jocelyn and James i'ms talked about Hamlet's 0:22:04.024 --> 0:22:08.624 essentially unknowable. There's a bottomless sense of mystery to him. 0:22:08.704 --> 0:22:10.664 You can read the play and study it and see 0:22:10.704 --> 0:22:13.624 production after production, but still you never quite feel like 0:22:13.664 --> 0:22:17.384 you fully know Hamlet. I think in some ways, am Let, 0:22:17.584 --> 0:22:22.864 my Amlet, is knowable, but there's something that's so brutal 0:22:23.064 --> 0:22:27.984 and fatalist and horrible about it that it's hard to 0:22:27.984 --> 0:22:31.984 sort of wrap your mind around. But I do think 0:22:32.104 --> 0:22:36.264 you know Hamlet because I've played Hamlet. He's a different 0:22:36.424 --> 0:22:40.224 person in every single scene, you know, and in many 0:22:40.224 --> 0:22:45.104 ways that's why he seems the most human of any 0:22:45.704 --> 0:22:50.104 character written. Maybe you played Hamlet ware the Edwin Booth 0:22:50.344 --> 0:22:54.744 Theater in Dover, New Hampshire. So m At this point 0:22:54.784 --> 0:22:59.024 in our conversation, Robert Eggers reaches behind him and from 0:22:59.024 --> 0:23:03.224 a shelf he grabs a skull, his own personal Hamlet 0:23:03.344 --> 0:23:08.864 like skull. Oh my goodness, never never leave home with 0:23:09.544 --> 0:23:15.584 no this question of Hamlet being knowable or not, it's 0:23:15.584 --> 0:23:18.464 so provocative. Do you think it's somehow connected to him 0:23:18.504 --> 0:23:21.544 having a moment right now? I asked James. I'ms about that. 0:23:21.944 --> 0:23:24.464 I think there are some Shakespeare roles that you can't 0:23:24.504 --> 0:23:27.064 really get to the bottom. You can't really get to 0:23:27.144 --> 0:23:29.984 the bottom of the Scottish King, you can't really get 0:23:30.024 --> 0:23:33.304 to the bottom of Juliet. And I think Hamlet is 0:23:33.344 --> 0:23:37.104 also in that category. Cleopatra is in that category Falstaff, 0:23:37.344 --> 0:23:39.864 but I think Hamlet in particular, there's just so much 0:23:39.904 --> 0:23:43.824 to mine. He says to people, you can't figure me out, 0:23:44.064 --> 0:23:46.704 you can't pluck out the heart of my mystery, right, 0:23:46.944 --> 0:23:49.224 And of course the action of the play is everybody 0:23:49.224 --> 0:23:51.144 trying to figure out what's going on with this guy. 0:23:51.184 --> 0:23:53.664 And he's dressed in black, and he's moping around, and 0:23:53.704 --> 0:23:56.664 he's stalking around, and nobody can figure him out. So 0:23:56.944 --> 0:24:00.184 there is this sense that he is this walking mystery 0:24:00.264 --> 0:24:05.184 whose depths are unplumbable and unknowable. Hamlet just sort of 0:24:05.944 --> 0:24:08.824 is isolated and trying to figure and move through this 0:24:08.904 --> 0:24:15.224 world by himself. Isolated and moving through the world by himself, 0:24:15.864 --> 0:24:20.544 that's Hamlet's problem. He's all alone. He sees a world 0:24:20.984 --> 0:24:25.624 upside down, out of order, not functioning, and he understands 0:24:25.744 --> 0:24:30.104 that fixing it is entirely up to him. More than 0:24:30.144 --> 0:24:32.704 all the other amazing things about the play and the character, 0:24:33.264 --> 0:24:36.464 this is the reason I think he's around so much 0:24:36.544 --> 0:24:39.584 right now, this thing of being alive at a time 0:24:39.824 --> 0:24:43.144 when the world is turning upside down, when everything we 0:24:43.224 --> 0:24:47.984 think we know is changing. It's so heavy and it's 0:24:48.024 --> 0:24:50.944 a burden we can all relate to, especially after the 0:24:51.064 --> 0:24:54.864 few years we've just lived through. This is the perfect 0:24:54.864 --> 0:24:58.504 time for Hamlet to show up to light the way forward. 0:24:58.904 --> 0:25:01.304 You've directed this play a couple of times. I've been 0:25:01.304 --> 0:25:04.504 really lucky. Yeah, your most recent was really about that, 0:25:04.584 --> 0:25:06.704 about Hamlet in this upside down world, right in the 0:25:06.704 --> 0:25:09.624 middle of the pandemic, right on the radio, when the 0:25:09.664 --> 0:25:12.944 old globe was closed because of the virus. Oh, that 0:25:13.104 --> 0:25:19.184 this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve 0:25:19.304 --> 0:25:23.584 itself into a due well, that the Everlasting had not 0:25:23.744 --> 0:25:27.104 fixed his kin and against self slaughter. What was the 0:25:27.144 --> 0:25:31.264 genesis of the production? What was your inspiration? Well, in 0:25:31.344 --> 0:25:36.144 the summer of twenty sixteen, my father of Blessed Memory 0:25:36.264 --> 0:25:40.704 died and he was in his mid eighties, and you know, 0:25:40.784 --> 0:25:43.664 we loved each other dearly, and I remember sitting in 0:25:43.704 --> 0:25:46.104 a hospice room with him in New Jersey in the 0:25:46.144 --> 0:25:51.544 final days of his life, and to my astonishment, what 0:25:51.784 --> 0:25:55.784 came into my head were lines from Hamlet nature's common 0:25:55.824 --> 0:25:59.224 theme is death of fathers. Your father lost a father, 0:25:59.344 --> 0:26:05.544 that father lost his just these strange echoes of Shakespeare 0:26:06.264 --> 0:26:09.144 rattling around in my head while I was sitting a 0:26:09.144 --> 0:26:11.464 loan at two o'clock in the morning in a dark room, 0:26:11.504 --> 0:26:16.984 with my father breathing heavily in a hospice bed and 0:26:17.264 --> 0:26:21.664 literally the final hours of his life. And when my 0:26:21.784 --> 0:26:25.384 father passed away, I thought something was speaking to me 0:26:25.504 --> 0:26:29.544 here that I've got to explore, and I really should 0:26:29.584 --> 0:26:36.224 go look at Hamlet. I am my father's spirit doomed 0:26:36.424 --> 0:26:40.704 for a certain term to walk the night. So now 0:26:40.704 --> 0:26:42.784 I want to talk about your twenty twenty one production 0:26:43.184 --> 0:26:46.584 of Hamlet, right in the height of the pandemic. You 0:26:46.744 --> 0:26:51.104 did a very technically innovative take on the play, and 0:26:51.144 --> 0:26:54.304 I'd love to hear about what at that time inspired 0:26:54.344 --> 0:26:58.904 you to tell this story again. So, the pandemic hit 0:26:58.984 --> 0:27:01.664 in March of twenty twenty and shut down the theater 0:27:01.784 --> 0:27:05.384 very quickly. So, like many American theaters, we pivoted to 0:27:05.464 --> 0:27:09.584 digital programming. We did some educational material, we did some 0:27:09.824 --> 0:27:13.744 community based material that we streamed on YouTube or Facebook, 0:27:13.864 --> 0:27:17.144 or that we recorded and then distributed, and at some 0:27:17.224 --> 0:27:20.224 point we said, well, what about the radio. So at 0:27:20.264 --> 0:27:23.704 the very beginning of twenty twenty one, I thought, let's 0:27:23.744 --> 0:27:27.224 get everybody back together from the twenty seventeen Hamlet and 0:27:27.264 --> 0:27:29.744 put some Shakespeare in the world. Maybe this kind of 0:27:29.824 --> 0:27:33.944 nimbus of Shakespeare might be a way to connect everybody 0:27:33.984 --> 0:27:37.904 who was out there alone, hunkered down. So that's what 0:27:37.944 --> 0:27:41.664 we did. What did it feel like to re encounter 0:27:41.824 --> 0:27:45.784 this play after the pandemic? Did you see it differently? 0:27:45.944 --> 0:27:48.464 Did it feel like it a change for you at all? 0:27:48.824 --> 0:27:50.744 When you heard the line the time is out of 0:27:50.824 --> 0:27:54.424 joint in the beginning of twenty twenty one, you just thought, 0:27:54.504 --> 0:27:58.544